Melee: Punch Your Way to Love
by fairyfan777
Summary: Lalu. "Lucy, Your thighs look like you could use them to crush the bones of your enemies, but you want to kick with your whole body." Laxus decides he's going to teach Lucy the sacred art of the Fairy Tail throw down, and Lucy goes along, because sometimes, a girl just wants to knock somebody out. In most cases, HIM.
1. Lucy Kick!

It started during a battle where they all met by chance.

Team Natsu and the Thunder God Tribe had jobs in towns on each side of Shirotsume, and when the spa town was attacked by bandits, both teams fell upon them. During the battle, Lucy got separated from her team and in a split second, the leader rushed toward her with a sword.

Her heart pounded; she was out of magic power and she was away from her team.

She closed her eyes.

In that instant, hands grasped her hips and spun her. When she opened her eyes, Laxus had her in his arms and was delivering a lightning-charged kick to her assailant. The blade had cut his left cheek, and he'd just barely made it in time to save her.

Laxus put the leader down quickly and unceremoniously and turned to Lucy. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You don't know how to fight, do you?"

He shook his head in disgust and walked off.

Both Fairy Tail teams converged at a spa hotel, where the mayor was treating them as a gift for saving the town, and after food, a pillow fight, and great fun, Lucy went back to her room and kept thinking about what had happened that day.

At three in the morning, she was restless, and she put on her bikini and went down to the giant hot tub they called a man-made hot spring. There were a few late-nighters there, mostly people who had too much to drink and lovers, so Lucy picked a quiet corner and sank under the warm water. She closed her eyes and attempted to relax, but as soon as she felt a little peace, lightning pierced the sky and all the people in the water ran inside because that was normal.

Lucy wasn't normal. She was a Fairy Tail wizard.

She was half asleep in a state of complete relaxation when the water suddenly changed. Without opening her eyes, she knew he'd gotten into the water because it carried some tiny, tingling electrical charge. At first, she thought he was trying to get her out of the water, but this was too subtle and she decided it was probably a natural phenomenon caused by him being in the water with her.

Lucy opened her eyes and found him sitting on the opposite side of the hot spring, beer in hand as he looked up at the stars. "You used lightning to scare all the people out of the hot spring, didn't you?"

"Were you enjoying sharing the water with a bunch of idiots that are either horny or drunk? Because if so, I can promise you I am both right now."

Blushing furiously, the blonde stood up and started to get out of the water, her tiny little bikini clinging to her curves.

Laxus took a sip from his beer and laughed darkly. "Did I scare the little virgin?"

"H-Hey, you don't know that! Stop jumping to conclusions!"

"Hm?" His eyes went from her face, down to her neck, and her breasts, and then over her butt and legs.

Her blush deepened to the point of spontaneous combustion. "S-Stop!"

"You've never had a man. I'm sure of it," he answered with a confident smirk.

"Pig!" she spun, but then she remembered their encounter earlier that day. "And I can fight!"

Laxus was out of the water in an instant, in front of her. He took a fighting stance, a predatory, playful look in his eyes. "Come at me," he purred.

"I will not! You are drunk and you are acting like a total imbecile right now!" she hissed.

"Then it should be easy. Hurt me."

Lucy took a fighting stance. "Fine. But let me remind you that you asked for it. Lucy kick!"

Instead of feeling the impact of her foot on his chin, one of his big hands caught each of her feet and pulled upward, sending the top half of her body toward the floor. The only thing that kept her from busting her nose on the cement walkway was the fact that he held her up high by her ankles.

Lucy fought him as she hung upside down by flailing with her arms at first, and then punched him in the shin hard enough she hurt her fist on the bone.

"Put your hands on the ground," he commanded.

She did so, and he released her into a handstand. She flopped onto the ground and scowled at him. "You're a jerk."

"The kick had some decent power, but your form is garbage. Stand up."

Lucy stood back up and he took a stance.

Laxus grabbed her hips and fixed them according to how he had been standing. "Your hips and ass are responsible for keeping you upright during battle. Depending on your strength and flexibility, there's a range of angles you can bend to and remain on your feet. When you did that kick, you lifted both your feet and angled your hips outside of your range. The only thing you could do when the kick failed to complete is fall."

The blonde tried to copy his stance.

"...unbuckle your knees. And put that feisty look back on. The helpless thing is fucking annoying. I'm going to teach you how to do a proper roundhouse kick."

Laxus was so drunk he smelled like he'd fallen into a distillery on the way to the hot spring, and there was nothing 'proper' about anything that was going on. She was wearing a string bikini, he had on swim trunks, and they were sparring on a concrete walkway.

The lightning mage looked down at her legs, and then did a series of slow motion kicks for her to watch. "Your thighs look like you could use them to crush the bones of your enemies, but you want to kick with your whole body. So you pivot, and swing, and put the force of your back, hips, and legs together. You can aim low into a floor sweep, in the middle for a body shot, or straight for the face."

Lucy asked, "My thighs look like what?"

Unfortunately for Laxus, he didn't know that she was actually a fast learner.

He repeated the phrase very slowly as if the fact he was drunk made her slow. "I said your thighs look like you could use them to crush the bones of your enemies. You could crush my—"

Her heel snapped across his chin and he stumbled sideways and fell backwards, hitting his skull on the ground. This, combined with the fact that his blood alcohol level was high enough to kill four ordinary people, left him unconscious on the ground.

"I don't even want to know how that sentence was going to end."

Lucy thought about leaving him, but then her mind filled with crazy ideas. What if someone kidnapped him? No, no one would do that. Laxus waking up hungover and kidnapped? Scary! She grabbed him by the hand and started to drag him, assuming that the concrete probably wouldn't do much damage to his skin. He'd probably be pissed if he woke up with no skin on his back, but this was his fault.

The lightning dragon slayer, at six and a half feet and two hundred and twenty pounds, was indescribably heavy to Lucy, and he was pure dead weight as she dragged him by the hand inside and down a hallway to the room she'd seen Freed come out of.

Lucy banged on the door.

Bixlow answered, and she huffed, "I think this...belongs to you..."

Freed came to the door. "What have you done?!"

"I dunno, but Laxus obviously loved it," Bixlow laughed.

"Goodnight," she groaned.

This was only the beginning.


	2. Lucy Balance!

Laxus really wasn't that boorish.

He really didn't know how to classify his prior evening, but it felt appropriate to acknowledge Lucy the next morning. Generally speaking, he had learned by that point in life that when a man does anything with a woman in the wee hours of the morning, it required some kind of attention in the morning. In this case, it was appropriate to congratulate her, because that tiny little woman left him with a bruised chin, a busted lip, and the mother of all headaches.

In that instant before she kicked him, he'd seen lightning in her eyes and it startled him and prevented him from blocking the kick.

Lightning was a precarious element, moreso than any other; that he knew better than anyone. Dangerous, unexpected, and crushingly powerful, it operated under no pretense, struck with devastation, and vanished.

When he followed her scent, he found her in a part not far from the resort, sparring with Capricorn. She punched one of his hands, and then the other.

The spirit stared at her through sunglasses. "Winning a battle is about controlling your body and your emotions. You seem unsettled. Your fighting will be unsettled."

The lightning dragon slayer watched with great dissatisfaction.

Lucy was not good at the form Capricorn was trying to teach, so she was frustrated. As Laxus watched the movement of her feet and hips, he realized she had a lot more potential than people really gave her credit for.

The spirit lectured her about her diet, about her mentality, about her lack of discipline.

He finally spoke.

"Real battles are won by losing control, not maintaining it," Laxus said.

The sparring match came to an instant halt and the two looked up at him.

"Laxus? Umm...sorry about last night. I knocked you out a little, I think," Lucy asked.

He ran a thumb over his lip. "I was impressed. But all of this is wrong. It's bothersome to watch. I woke up with a concussion that says you can do better than play patty cake."

It was rare for anyone to praise her fighting skills, and it kindled a little confidence in her. The blonde put her hands up, and retraced the instructions he'd given her. Her body remembered, and now that she was refreshed, she felt the power of her whole body as she pivoted and spun into the kick. The kick made an impact with a distinct grunt from the little blonde and Capricorn stumbled backwards and fell.

Lucy felt her heart start to beat a little faster and she advanced.

"Control..." Capricorn urged.

Laxus chided on. "Tigers are meant to be wild."

Lucy looked from one to the other; they had drastically different ideas about who and what she was. Capricorn was her faithful and beloved spirit, but he trained her as if she was a helpless schoolgirl who was out of shape and ten kinds of awkward. Then there was Laxus, who had somehow seen some part of her that seemed to be hidden to others even though she never tried to hide it.

Capricorn took issue with him then. "Laxus, you take issue with her training?"

"I take issue with all of it. Stop treat her like she's going to be a boxer. It's _absurd_. She's a woman. The strength is in her core, in her ass, in her legs. She obviously took ballet as a child considering how she points her toes. Huge advantage. She's fast. Bigger advantage. She could be great, unless you're teaching her to punch, which utilizes her weakest muscle and bone groups. And that bullshit about staying in control is really the icing on the cake."

The blonde was amazed that he knew so much just by watching how she moved over a short period of time. It made her feel a certain kind of way to know that someone so powerful saw potential in her, and when he laid it out, she wondered if this was why she'd been so unsuccessful.

Lucy looked down and took Capricorn's key in hand. "Thanks very much. I'll see you later okay?"

Her spirit bowed. "As you wish."

When he left, Lucy turned to Laxus. "What are you doing here?"

"I really want to ask you the same question."

The blonde bit her lip. "I try, you know. I didn't grow up fighting. There's this moment that happens in most of my battles where I feel _helpless_ , and I hate it. And everyone thinks that's okay because I'm a summoner or because I'm a cute girl or because I grew up rich or because I can yell a certain name and I'm usually all right. I really didn't leave my whole life behind to feel like this."

Laxus seemed thoughtful for a moment as he leaned on a nearby tree. "You're missing the more serious issue. You're a summoner who uses caster magic, and as your spirits become more powerful, your enemies are going to stop wasting time on them and target your body. You'll be killed. It's inevitable."

"I know that."

They stood there for a while and stared at one another, and Lucy finally said, "I want to say that you don't know what it's like to grow up in a family where your last name has _expectations,_ but I think you know that frustration too, Laxus _Dreyar_. People just saw me as my father's daughter, spoiled, entitled, and in a place where life was supposed to be easy. All I had to do was go through the motions. Be pretty. Marry some rich older man. Have babies."

Her words struck a chord, and a spark of interest ignited. "Why did you leave? Most women would love to live that kind of life. It would have been easier. I once saw you beaten to hell and wondered what makes a princess run away to live the violent life of a wizard. Were you bored?"

The lightning flashed in her eyes again. "I left because I'm not the kind of girl that can be trained by a corset," she answered indignantly.

It was possibly the most interesting answer to any question he'd ever asked in his life.

He wondered if his teammates know she was a force of nature waiting to hatch, but knew it was likely they did not. Because he was at a loathsomely boring phase in his life, he decided this would make things infinitely more lively. His grandfather told him the doldrums of his twenties were life's way of telling him to settle down, and he'd steadily been looking for something to entertain him as getting married and procreating were completely out of the question.

"Are you the kind of girl that can be trained by a dragon? I won't go easy on you."

The blonde nodded. "As far as you're willing to go, I'll go along."

XXX

On her first morning home, her alarm clock went off at 4:30 am, and Lucy slid out of bed and put on her workout clothes. She really wasn't in terrible shape, but she wasn't in elite condition either. It was five miles between her apartment and the building where the Raijinshuu trained.

She stretched, ate some corn flakes, stretched some more, and ran there, arriving sweaty, tired, and sore, but still standing, a testament to training she had already attempted and somewhat failed at.

The building was tall, and covered in bricks on the outside.

There were lacrima runes all over the place, probably to keep it from being destroyed by magic. There were two halves to the building: a gym-like area for training mages, and a giant empty room lined in concrete with rune carvings. Judging from the black marks all over the floor, many a lightning bolt had struck in the room.

Freed greeted her when she entered. "Welcome, Lucy. We call this the dragon's nest. Laxus doesn't let anyone else come here."

"I wonder why he even agreed to train me, but I'm grateful. From a professional standpoint, to be trained by someone so elite is quite something," she answered.

The green-haired man led her to a couple of soft mats. "To be honest, Laxus has been restless lately. You ever get that feeling you need to change something up in your life? Master told him to find a wife and have some babies."

Lucy burst out laughing. "No. Just...no."

"His sentiments exactly. But anyway, we're going to stretch. It's going to be awful for the first couple of weeks. You're going to have pain in the strangest places, but just bear with me, because this is going to help you a lot in the future," he said.

Freed gave her instructions on no less than twenty different stretches she was to do three times a day, and on this first occasion, grabbed her limbs and pulled, twisted, and otherwise contorted her in ways that she wasn't sure the human body was supposed to bend. It was torture, or maybe something a little bit worse, and once it was over, her body felt like it was made entirely of rubber bands that had been pulled too tight.

Strength training was next, and she learned the art of resistance bands, feeling every muscle in her back as it burned. "Somehow, I pictured myself lifting weights," she growled.

"Lifting weights would be useful if you often carry small, dense objects with high weight during battle. They tend to work isolated muscles at a time, and in battle, you're going to use your muscles in groups, so it's better to train that way," a voice called.

Lucy, drenched in sweat and so sore she could barely move, released the band and looked up at Laxus.

He was amused. "Besides, lifting weights will bulk up your muscles. If you want have bulging musculature, we can go that way."

"Th-this is fine," she panted.

"I'm impressed you're still standing."

She defiantly put her hands on her hips. "You have no idea how bad I want this."

Laxus gestured for her and took her to a balance beam. "Take your shoes and socks off and get up."

"...but..."

"Up."

Lucy climbed up on it in a fairly graceless manner and stood with shaking legs. "Why do you have this?!"

Laxus jumped up without a problem.

Her heart started to pound.

And she realized Laxus was completely out of his mind.

Whatever happened next was going to be crazy, but as she stood there, she played little flashes of her memories back. Laxus was amazingly _nimble_. During the fight with Master Hades, he'd bounced, flipped, and jumped around the room dodging his magic whips like it was nothing. With Jura, he jumped and ran across all the earth mage's constructions while they were growing and then catapulted off them to attack.

"Come at me."

Lucy looked down at the merciless, hard floor, and wondered if maybe there should be mats on the floor. Then she decided that was unlike Laxus; if the floor was soft then it would discourage her from landing on it less.

She extended her arms and walked shakily across the beam, but when she got to Laxus, she wasn't sure what to do.

Since her balance was reliant on her legs, she swung at him hard with one fist, and he dodged easily. She fell off the beam, but an inch before her nose hit the floor, he grabbed her by the shirt and lifted her back up. He held her until she was standing on the beam, but now she was facing away from him.

"Again."

Lucy fell trying to turn, and again, and again, but on her fourth try, she turned without falling off the beam. "Ha! Take that!"

"I'm waiting for you to attack me. So far, standing has been the biggest challenge you can handle," he incredulously answered. "When you're struggling to keep your balance, your upper-body can check your balance or wreck it."

The blonde was starting to sort the physics out, but Laxus was right. She had been in ballet so she did have some weird abilities. Pivoting on one foot was something she could do, or she could remember doing. She took one step back, then two steps forward and swung her fist. He dodged and the force rotated her on her pivot foot. She extended one leg and just barely missed him

Laxus bent over backwards like a cat and grabbed the beam with his hands and flipped onto his feet. "Good. Use what your body knows. Improve."

"God, you're like a cat."

He tilted his head and smirked. "Meow."

Lucy spent over fourteen hours straight on top of the balance beam with him. They even drank water together sitting on the beam as she was forbidden to set foot on the ground until they finished. She fell a total of sixty-two times, but he never let her impact the floor. He promised her that he'd stop catching her after a few lessons, and that he was doing it to keep her feet from getting reacquainted to the floor and not because he was concerned about the injury it would cause.

When she finally got down, it was _surreal_. It was like she was hyper-aware of her sense of balance. Her feet tried to stay in the pattern she'd walked in, her her hips and shoulders had memorized the motion of staying balanced and square. "This is cool..."

"That was really pretty impressive," he said.

"You think?"

Laxus nodded.

Her legs suddenly turned to jello and she crumbled to the ground and crossed her legs. "Who taught you that?"

"Believe it or not, Gramps. If you pay attention to him when you see him fight, he really is like a feline. Small and agile. It's not all about size and strength. Being able to stay on your feet is very important. Even if you get hit, being able to stay on your feet will minimize injury. In battle, more injuries are caused by crashing into other objects than actually getting hit," he answered as he went to where he'd thrown his jacket on the floor.

Laxus brought her a book and sat on the floor with her.

Lucy cracked open the book, which contained spells and mathematical formulas. "What is it?"

"It's ability-type Kinetics magic. That's the only copy of the magic in existence, so don't let Natsu burn it. I got it as a reward on a mission a long time ago. It's not useful for attacking, and it can't be used with an other kind of ability-type magic. It's also extremely difficult to understand, but the ability involves turning energy from movement into magic power and vice versa. For instance, the energy from getting hit with an attack, or the energy from falling twenty feet and hitting the ground.-it would protect your body, replenish your magic, and give you a serious boost in your ability to move."

"I've never used ability-type," she mused.

It wouldn't have made sense to learn another form of magic when celestial spirit summoning took so much energy. But if this replenished her magic, it potentially helped her body skills and her summoning skills, so she decided she'd at least try.

Laxus rested his head in his hand. "Ability-type magic always causes the human body to change. Right now, magic flows from your magic container to your keys. When you push it through your bloodstream and flesh, there are going to be side effects."

Lucy nodded in understanding.

He stood and offered her a hand, but she stood on her own with a groan. "Once last thing and then you can go home. Empty your magic. Do it three times a day from now on."

The blonde nodded.

Lucy limped into the concrete room, cast Urano Metria, and passed out face-first on the floor.

Freed carried her home, drew a hot bath with some muscle soak, and waited for her to stir. "You okay?"

"I'm wonderful," she sarcastically answered.

He waited for her to get in the bath and left, and Lucy settled under the water, agonizing over her aching muscles as she took a mental inventory of her pains and aches. There were no injuries, but literally every inch of her body was in pain.

Lucy sat in the bath and cried from the pain, but it was so worth it. She knew it, and she was grateful that Laxus was investing his time to teach her. She hadn't really had any kind of proper teacher for magic or for fighting. Her mom died when she was little, and she'd just been making due all along.

It really was nice to have someone believe in her like that. Of course her team believed in her magic, but they tried to keep her out of the fray. That's right where Lucy wanted to be.

She cracked the book open and studied for an hour, then got out of the water, did her stretches, and went to bed, knowing she had to redo it all again in the morning.

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	3. Lucy Ouch!

There was a _moment_.

Lucy felt like she grew a whole foot in one single moment of her life.

Mondays were spent sparring on the balance beam with Laxus, and for the first couple of sessions, he'd prevent her from hitting the ground. He chose to let that grace expire and four Mondays after their first, she took a shot at him, and he took one back. She was airborne for a split second, and trying to get back on her feet, she fell and hit the beam squarely between her legs, breaking her pubic bone.

Lucy screamed and Laxus heard the crack quite clearly and had little doubt for which of her bones had snapped.

From where she'd hit the beam, she slumped over and hit the floor shaking from the pain.

Laying on her side, curled into a ball, she felt pressure on the broken bone and she flailed around as she screamed through gnashed teeth, finally laying on her back with her legs spread, hands fisted at her sides as she took unsteady breaths. She couldn't help it; she cried.

Laxus jumped down and she saw concern in his eyes. He knelt, and said, "I need you to not take this personally. Broken pelvic bones can cause deadly internal bleeding if the bone fragments move. Understand what I am telling you?"

She nodded and hissed, amazed that anything in the world could be so unimaginably painful.

He brought her legs together, which tore a scream from her lips, and pulled the drawstring on her workout pants and pulled them down with her panties.

Laxus was _professional_ , and she opened her legs again, whimpering when she felt his index finger run along the cracked bone. When he palpated the precise location of the break, she all but forgot to breathe and then let out a deafening scream.

"The bone is cracked but it's still in the right place," he said as he redressed her.

He stood up, and looked down at her darkly. Now that he knew she shouldn't have any internal bleeding, he felt safe to give his next instruction,"Get up."

"You aren't ss-ss—sserious."

Laxus said, "Your enemies are going to break your bones. They're going to stab you. Burn you. Bruise your insides, shatter your limbs...cause you to know pain that'll make this seem trivial. Somewhere in your mind, you know."

"Know what?"

"A fairy _always_ gets up. No matter how many times they crash to the ground, no matter how injured they are, no matter how it looks...when you stop getting up is when you die," he answered, his voice menacing. "So stop crying, get up, and come at me."

Lucy hated him.

Hated his voice, hated the heartless look on his face, hated the way he looked down at her.

"Fuck you, Laxus," she hissed as she twisted and rolled onto her belly, drawing one knee up. She didn't cry anymore, but she let out a growl as she clenched the beam and pulled herself up. Her whole body was shaking, and she wasn't sure if it was because she was in pain or because she was really that angry with him.

But she realized that her enemies would look at her worse, say worse to her, and they wouldn't make sure she was okay before they demanded her violence.

Moving her legs was out of the question, but she summed up every ounce of her courage an resolve and she swung a fist hard, and she missed miserably but he caught her.

"Good," he said as he caught her and knocked her out with a jolt of electricity to her spine.

When she woke up, she was at Porlyusica's house and the old healer was giving Laxus an ear and a half over her collection of training injuries: muscles that showed signs over overexertion, bruises, cuts, scrapes, bleeding calluses and blisters.

Laxus was sitting at her table with his arms crossed, feet up on the table and a whole lot of 'don't give a fuck' on his face. He knew how broken her body was because he was the one who had broken it.

She had fused the bone back together, taking away most of the pain. A dull ache was left behind, but from Lucy's experience, anytime magic healing was used there was always some ghost of a memory of the pain that should have been. It was nothing compared to the real suffering had been.

Lucy stood up and Porlyusica stopped ranting when the dragon slayer and spirit summoner's eyes met. The kind of trust that existed there was of the rare kind, and she knew whatever calamity had befallen the young woman's body, she had accepted it.

A blue bird with a yellow envelope flew through the open window and Laxus grabbed the envelope between two fingers. The bird landed on his shoulder as he opened it, read the contents of the letter, and nodded.

"Accept," he said.

The bird flew back out and he stood up. "Do you want to stay here and recover or go on a little quest?"

Lucy pointed at herself. "Me?"

"I'm certainly not asking the hag."

She nodded.

XXX

Laxus was good at keeping a straight face, like he was just tired on the train, but Lucy knew the truth. He licked his lips now and then, and the pupils of his eyes were more constricted than they should have been, just like Natsu.

They were with Bixlow and Freed, which made her wonder yet again why she only saw two-thirds of the Raijinshuu members. She'd trained once a week with both of them, and hadn't even seen Evergreen. So when they invited her to eat with them, she followed them to the dining car and sat at a booth, intent on asking why one of their members was missing.

Freed and Bixlow were actually pretty cool.

Lucy loved to train with Freed, even though she felt like he was trying to kill her sometimes—at least he was polite while he was doing it? Her favorite training days were Wednesdays, where she'd jump on a trampoline encased in magic runes. She had to jump, twist so she didn't hit her face on the runes, and when her feet made contact, different random things would happen, like she might get spun, or she'd ricochet off in some random direction, or she'd get thrown toward the floor. Laxus called it the 'land on your fucking feet' game.

Freed was mild, and very kind.

Bixlow was wild and fun. Her training activity with Bixlow involved him chasing her through the East Forest with his dolls. It was dangerous, and exhilarating.

They were both pretty cool, and it was different because they were a little bit older than Team Natsu. They didn't fight, nobody took their clothes off, and they treated her like a little sister. What Laxus set out to accomplish was the will of the whole Raijinshuu.

"Where is Evergreen?"

Freed put his beer down. "Ah, we were wondering when you'd ask. The guild doesn't know yet, but Elfman impregnated her. Laxus banned her from the Raijinshuu until she has her baby."

Bixlow smirked, "Laxus was pretty livid. Our question is how come Natsu hasn't come busting down the door looking for you?"

The waitress served her strawberry shake. "I was honest with him. I told him what I was doing, who I was doing it with, and he threw a fit, but he's not like that. People get the wrong idea about Natsu. There are a lot of things he doesn't understand, but the important stuff, he gets."

She took a long sip from the shake and practically smiled at it. One thing she appreciated about training with Laxus was that running ten miles a day at a minimum meant she could splurge and still be okay.

Lucy had noticed her body was changing with her efforts. She weighed the same, but the fat on her body was starting to thin. Her waistline shrank, and her belly was perfectly flat. She'd lost a whole cup size, and her butt didn't giggle, but if her thighs had been fearsome to Laxus in the beginning, they were doubly bad now. She had definition, and it made her feel confident not only in how she looked, but in what her body could do.

"What was that yellow letter?" she asked while they were eating their food a few minutes later.

Freed tossed his hair back. "It's a Council Summons. The Council personally asked for his help to take care of a problem. It's happened once before. The Council is trying to fill the three empty seats on the Ten Wizards Saints, and Laxus is under consideration."

"It's a test."

"Something like that."

After they ate, they went back to the compartment, where Laxus was still in the exact same position.

They rode the train for two days, heading steadily north. The landscape turned white after a while, and when they arrived at the little town of Snowdrop, it was still a little over twenty-four hours before Laxus was supposed to rendezvous with the commander of the Rune Knights.

At a little inn by the train station, Laxus talked to the clerk and then approached them with a twitching brow.

"Bad news boss?"

Laxus narrowed his eyes. "So we got the last room."

"...room..." Freed repeated.

He looked down at Lucy as he handed out room keys. "We have four people and two beds. You and Freed are smaller. You can either share with Bixlow or me. Freed will share with the other. Choose your poison."

The blonde looked from Laxus to Bixlow and back again.

On the sheer merit that he'd touched her crotch not long before, she pointed. "Bixlow."

She shivered, and Laxus threw his coat over her and told her to buy clothes before it go dark. She'd brought winter wear, but no one had explained it there would be negative temperatures. She'd never felt cold quite like that before.

Lucy wandered the good half of the town until she found a store. The townspeople seemed to be going about their business as if half the town wasn't in shambles, but she overheard them say the demon only struck when the moon was full, so they were trying to take care of everything that night because the moon would be full the following night.

Her selections were careful: white knee-high boots, some thick pink pants she could tuck into them, thick wool tights, an insulating undershirt, a long-sleeved thick white shirt, a thick white coat with a hood, white gloves, and a pink scarf and knit hat. They recommended goggles for the bitter wind they said came often, and she agreed and bought them. She got a couple of items she could swap out in case they were there for a few days and went to the inn.

She changed there since she was shivering even with Laxus' coat, and then she went back to the inn to find them all drinking beer in the lodge. Uninterested, Lucy sat at a little table in the lobby and started studying her kinetics book.

Lucy was almost sure there was something fundamentally flawed or missing about the magic. In theory, it should have been exactly what she needed but after a month, she'd never activated the base spell. It was difficult, and even with intelligence that was well above average, it eluded her.

So she studied for hours, until she noticed the lights in the lodge being turned out.

She felt it when she stood—a stabbing pain where her bone had been broken. It wasn't her first time to experience this either; sometimes magical heals weren't the shortcuts they weren't supposed to be. It was cold, and atmosphere was different, and she'd been sitting for hours, which she'd been told not to do.

She limped back to the room, and by the time she made it to the door, her hands were shaking when she tried to stick the key in the hole.

Hearing her failed attempts with the door, Laxus opened the door and looked down at her. "Your injury?"

She nodded.

He took a bottle of pills from his bag and he offered her two.

Lucy sat on the edge of the bed and started crying after she took them.

It wasn't because she hurt so much. She missed her team, missed her friends, missed doing normal Lucy things. Somehow, she'd been sucked into the vortex of the Raijinshuu by Laxus and she was really starting to doubt what she was even doing. Somehow, she was an eighteen-year-old girl sleeping in a room with three twenty-something men and something just felt _wrong_.

What was she even doing in this strange, miserable place without her team?

Laxus watched her start to crumble and realized he'd pushed her too far and isolated her too much.

Lucy took a hot bath, which did little to alleviate her pain, put on her pajamas, and crawled in the bed next to Bixlow. This was uneventful, and as the pain medication kicked in, she fell into a deep sleep.

And when she awoke, they were all gone, and there was a note explaining the runes keeping her in the room. It was evidently all for her safety, since she was injured. Lucy was infuriated and hurt, and if she'd been able to leave the room, she would have gone straight home.

Instead, she was stuck, so, unsure of what else to do, she went back to studying the magic she couldn't master, feeling like a general failure.

After three hours, Freed's runes fell, yet the men weren't anywhere near.

Lucy was confused and worried.

When she layered up and went outside, her heart all but stopped beating.

Most of the town had vanished, with undisturbed snow suggested it hadn't ever been real in the first place. She looked over her shoulder, and the inn looked broken down from the outside, and when she looked at the few other buildings, she realized the style of boots she wore were in fashion about ten years ago.

There were no people anywhere, and everything that actually existed looked like it had been abandoned for years.

She suddenly remembered they'd been the only ones on the train during the last leg to the farthest station, and the train was long gone.

The wind howled and she put the goggles on, with her hat. She wrapped the scarf around her face and pulled her hood up.

It had all been a trap.

In the distance, she heard the telltale crackle of lightning, and there was a storm brewing, so she didn't know if it was him or not, but she felt like it might be seriously dangerous to stay in place. At the very least, she had to get to wherever they were.

Warm clothes or no, the cold was like nothing else in the world, and even though the wind only directly touched her face, it felt like spines pricking her. The snow was thick and it was hard to walk, especially with her injury.

Lightning cracked again after she'd been walking for what seemed to be an eternity, and this time, she felt Laxus' magic. It was more delicate than one would expect from him, and when the snow suddenly ended, Lucy slipped and almost fell down a craggy cliff covered in ice-coated shelf rocks.

A lake.

Laxus was fighting an ice wizard on a frozen lake, and he was bleeding. Freed and Bixlow were various shades of beaten up on the ice nearby, and Laxus was fighting with a Council-issued magic inhibitor band around his wrist. They weren't supposed to let a person use any magic, so whatever Laxus was able to manage in excess of that was practically a miracle.

Their opponent was a man that had whitish hair and red eyes, and Lucy knew he was a dragon slayer when he took a long breath in and than spewed out frozen ice particles. Dragon magic was weirdly familiar to her and she could recognize it easily.

Lucy partially activated Sagittarius Star Dress just to gain the ability to use the bow; being half-naked was not an option. If she could concentrate her magic into one blow...No, that wasn't smart. She felt fortunate the wind whipped her scent away from the dragon slayers, because she went unnoticed.

She had one shot, and when she took it, she was going to have an angry dragon slayer coming after her. Laxus was very limited in his ability to use magic, and the other two were not even conscious.

Lucy took a stance, aimed carefully, and concentrated a percentage of her magic into this one arrow. It _had_ to hit the mark. There was no room for her to miss. She did math in her head; the wind was blowing crazy hard.

The arrow sailed through the sky with a shriek, filled with magic and the intent of the caster.

Laxus heard the arrow and saw it completely miss the ice dragon slayer, and he held completely still as the arrow hit its mark. It impacted the red lacrima that empowered the magic inhibition cuff and shattered it, effectively releasing his magic.

Marshall, the ice dragon slayer, didn't see this. All he saw was that she missed, and he was angry. "All that and you missed?! Pathetic!" He ran fast, and leapt up to where she was, but while he was in the air, the whole sky lit up with lightning, which struck his form with a vengeance.

He landed on the ground in front of her, and she looked down. "I didn't miss. I just wasn't aiming at you."

Laxus attacked him full force at the top of the cliff, and Lucy did what seemed right at the moment and carefully made her way down to where Bixlow and Freed were, only to discover they were under the influence of sleep magic.

She summoned Taurus, and when he appeared, she asked, "Can you carry them off the ice?"

The spirit grabbed one under each arm and carried them across the ice to a patch of earth about sixty yards from where ice and lightning were flying overhead. Lucy saw the rogue Rune Knights on the other side of the lake, and she knew that would be a hassle. They specialized in anti-magic methods so they could arrest wizards who broke the law.

Lucy fired one more arrow into the dead center of the lake, and it exploded with magic and made a hole in the ice. Cracks fanned out, and the ice broke into pieces, causing the Rune Knights to fall in, or try hard not to, or try and help their comrades who had fallen in.

Laxus watched from the corner of his eye and knew Lucy had been woefully underestimated. This wasn't a situation where she should fight, because one wrong move and she wouldn't be able to move anymore. The blonde made a series of well-calculated moves to accomplish what she wanted.

Each one of these actions was correct and executed perfectly.

Laxus was sure she'd be pissed as hell in about ten...nine...eight...seven...six...five...four...three...two...

Rune Knights clothed in white suddenly encroached on them and walls of earth encased where Lucy was all the way to where Laxus was looming over Marshall, foot on the man's throat.

Healers rush to help Bixlow and Freed, and Lucy easily recognized Jura when he approached Laxus.

Laxus wiped blood from his mouth onto his hand. "This was _not_ the plan."

"Apologies. The snowstorm caused us to arrive late," Jura said.

Blood rushed to Lucy's cheeks. Plan? Jura? What?

With the wind effectively blocked by Jura's earthen walls, Lucy climbed up the icy face of the cliff easily, her limbs fueled by anger. "...what plan?!" she roared as she pulled the scarf down from her mouth and took the goggles off.

Laxus took the note he'd received at Porlyusica's house and gave it to her.

 _Non-Mandatory Assistance Request  
Laxus Dreyar, Fairy Tail_

 _We have received reports that one of the commanders of the Rune Knights has gone rogue, along with his platoon. Marshall Weathers may be attempting to target dragon slayers who have a lacrima. Your participation in exposing and trapping him would be crucial to an operation ongoing to purge Council ranks of disloyal command._

 _Jura Nekkis_

Lucy threw it on the ground. "So Marshall set a trap for you here, saying he needed your assistance to kill a demon, and you came here to trap him and _no one told me_?"

Jura looked from Lucy to Laxus. "Miss Heartfilia...nice to see you."

"Since you weren't supposed to fight, I planning on informing you afterward. But the plan went to shit anyway. Magic inhibitor cuffs and sleep magic were not part of anything that we discussed," Laxus said with a little venom on his tongue. "It's my team that got beaten to hell."

Lucy was mad. She was so mad she could barely breathe, and she felt like all the training she did meant nothing to Laxus. When it mattered, he left her behind and coddled her, just like everyone else. She wasn't crazy enough to disrespect him in front of Jura, but as soon as the opportunity presented itself, she planned on giving him a piece of her mind and then leaving the whole ordeal behind.

Jura asked, "How'd you manage? I was worried, but seems like you had it all under control."

Laxus looked at Lucy. "I reserved a card to play. I wanted to avoid playing it became unavoidable. Don't think I put my team at risk and I didn't have a plan."

Lucy gasped.

Knights came to take Marshall away, and Jura saw the gelatinous way his body moved, like a number of bones had been broken. "Excessive hand you dealt him..."

"It's to be expected. He made me play my trump, so I crushed him."

Lucy wasn't fabulous at cards, but he knew Laxus had just called her his trump card—one that he hadn't wanted to use if he didn't have to. She almost expected Jura to laugh or argue at the idea that she was a high card in this context, but he nodded and regarded her with respect.

When Jura walked away, Lucy looked up him. "I'm mad at you."

"I expect as much. I'm so impressed with you right now I don't particularly care."

"I did okay?" she sheepishly asked.

He held up his wrist. "You fired an arrow and hit a one inch lacrima from a hundred yards away in heavy wind. You identified a source of danger and removed your teammates, then used that danger to keep enemies away. Everything was perfect."

"But I didn't fight..."

Laxus leaned over and poked the end of her nose. "If you break the ice and fuck over the rebel Council members, the result is the same as if you personally kicked all their asses individually."

Lucy turned to take a step and felt a stab of pain she knew had been there all along, but her strength to push her body vanished and she crumbled.

He tried to support her, but she slugged him in the stomach and knocked the wind out of him.

The blonde had lightning in her eyes again as she turned to stomp away. "Don't ever keep anything from me again. It makes you a hypocrite. I feel so...vindicated and relieved that you would rely on me if something went wrong. Then I feel a stupid little girl because you didn't tell me anything. I deserve to be respected."

The Council took them to the next town over, and booked her a private room in a luxurious ski lodge where she could sleep and relax in peace. A healer did a good job of numbing the pain of her broken bone, but she wasn't as good as Porlyusica or Wendy.

After a good study of magic she still could not understand, she made her way down to the lodge's hot spring at some ungodly hour of the morning and found a certain dragon slayer basking in the sulfuric fumes and hot bubbly water, beer in hand.

She could see cuts and scratches on his face, but he didn't seem to mind at all.

"I apologize."

Lucy stared blankly at him and shivered under her towel. "You apologize? I'm sorry, did hell freeze over?"

Laxus looked around the snowy, icy wasteland that extended seemingly endlessly under the moonlight. "Probably. That would explain a lot..." He looked up and said, "It's literally zero degrees. Either get in the water or go inside. That old hag will twist my ear if you get pneumonia too."

Alone in a hot spring again, she sank up to her chin and looked up at the stars.

He looked up too and said, "Do you know why people treat you like that?"

"Like what?"

"The way that evidently drives you out of your mind."

"Why?"

He said, "They think you're the Queen of Hearts. Powerful, but the Queen. The Queen is expected to be under the King. The King is supposed to protect the Queen. She's higher than most, but she's really lost somewhere in the middle because there is always a man above her. The power she has comes from the King. She's concerned with being pretty. She doesn't think too hard. If someone crosses her, they have to deal with the King."

"I guess..."

"When I saw that arrow, I almost dodged it. I trusted your power, your aim, your decisions, and I didn't move. Because I realized the card I had tucked up my sleeve wasn't what I thought it was. You're not the Queen of Hearts, you're the fucking Ace of Spades, Lucy Heartfilia."

 _ **Please Review!**_

Special thanks to SilverGhostKitsune, W1n6s-0f-f1r3, xxshyxx, burning amber3, rikary, kurahieiritr JIO, Carvertown, Bbabs, Kamila-chan, 33p1987, and Adabs18, for reviewing!

I really appreciate all the feedback and love on this story. I'm really enjoying writing it. I want to be careful and not fuck Lucy up too much. Like her greatest asset is her mind, and I don't want to take that away. I want her to become strong, but I don't want her to stop being Lucy.

 _ **Next chapter: Grand Magic Games**_


	4. Lucy Boom!

Lucy heard someone say once that necessity is the mother of invention.

A month after the incident in Snowdrop, she was on a job with Team Natsu and had been dragged off a tall mountainside cliff by her opponent when the tide turned in her favor. The earth mage hit her in a tackling position and they both went plummeting toward the ground eighty feet below.

It was during the fall that she realized the missing piece of her magic: gravity.

How fast did things accelerate in a free fall? There was a physics book in her room she'd started to work on, but the answer eluded her until she was about twenty feet from impact.

Drago, her opponent, used earth magic to create a dust pit to land in, and Lucy bet her everything she really had it this time and went feet-first toward the rocky ground as she tried to cast the spell.

Magic flooded her body as her feet glowed gold and the earth cracked at her impact.

Her enemy was confused and her body was pulsing with energy in a way she could not describe. She leapt, and it was like her body was weightless as it flew through the air at what was far faster than her normal top speed.

Lucy kicked him once and the impact from her fall discharged into the kick completely by accident. He went flying through the woods, his body snapping trees until he finally hit a hard one that stopped his movement.

The blonde ran fearfully to where he was crumbled against an old oak tree. "Are you okay?" she asked, fearing she'd killed him.

His eyes opened, but he didn't breathe for a long time. When he did, he hissed, "...the fuck kind of question is that? Kick my ass and ask if I'm all right...goddamned fairies..."

"Good, you're not dead. What a relief!"

And then, as she headed back to the base of the mountain, she let out a scream of triumph and jumped up and down. Only she knew her struggles with the book Laxus had given her, which presented so many challenges Lucy could hardly remember them all. First, it had a code. Then she realized some of the pages were out of order. Then she realized she was missing a page and had to figure out what existed between to parts of the spell. After that, there were all kinds of physics equations that had to be solved, their products and results turned to magical bases.

Lucy didn't even know how many countless hours of the last two months of her life had been spent on this.

But she forgot something, activating it for the first time in battle:

" _ **Ability-type magic always causes the human body to change. Right now, magic flows from your magic container to your keys. When you push it through your bloodstream and flesh, there are going to be side effects."**_

These words echoed through her mind in a very loud way when her right leg—which had been used to discharge the magic—suddenly cramped up and caused her to fall. Suddenly, she tingled everywhere and had assorted twitches all over her body.

And then she puked, because her nervous system was not accustomed to ability-type magic. Her cells had been directly injected with probably a lot of magic, considering how high she'd fallen from. Her body soaked up magic from her magic container and saturated her body.

Lucy ended up a twitchy mess, and Loke appeared at her side although all she could see was his feet from her place on the ground.

"Empty your magic. Or you're going to get really sick in the middle of this battle," he said.

The blonde nodded, and donned Sagitarius Star Dress, aiming a single arrow at several bandits headed down the side of the mountain to were Natsu and Gray were fighting. Carefully, she concentrated all her magic into that single arrow and let it fly, causing a massive detonation.

Her body stilled, and Lucy stood up, well-accustomed to moving around without her magic since Laxus had her empty her magic before she trained her body. "It's going to come back?"

"It's basically magic poisoning. When you use ability-type magic, your body constantly requires magic. The more your body acclimates, the more reliant on magic you'll be. For now, magic is a foreign presence and your body is naturally going to resist it," he explained.

Lucy felt a strange pulse all over her skin, and she rubbed her arm. "I'm absorbing magic _through my skin_."

Under normal circumstances, a mage inhaled ethernano in the air and their lungs metabolized it to usable energy and stored it in their magic container. Lucy could feel that taking place across her skin, but her magic _did_ deal with energy.

Because she was quickly reabsorbing magic, her leg twitched and her body protested again and she barfed while Loke held her hair.

On the way home, Lucy could vaguely overhear the sound of her teammates who were so happy for her but at the same time, worried because was feverish and shaking. She didn't say much about the magic, because Laxus said not to. Since she was the only person who had it, it was possible she might be able to use it indefinitely and no one would ever know how it worked. That, he said, was an 'incalculable advantage.'

The next week was kind of a blur of waking up sick, but when she awoke on the eighth day, she was alert. It was afternoon, and Porlyusica was mashing herbs with a mortar and pestle.

Lucy woke up and swung her legs over the bed. "I'm a pain, sorry."

"I damn well know you're not doing any of this on your own. It wouldn't have been bad if you just activated the spell using a little magic. You overloaded your nervous system with whatever that magic is. There may still be some light side effects," she answered.

"Thank you again. You have a bill?"

"It's paid already."

Porlyusica crossed her arms when she got ready to leave. "Did Laxus explain the side effects of using ability-type magic?"

"He said there would be side effects. He didn't explain what they'd be."

The old woman explained, "Caster and ability type magic are basically the same; caster magic predates ability magic by centuries. Caster magic enables you to channel your energy into an object which has been enchanted. Ability magic is the same, except your body is the object. Just like your keys have different abilities and powers, so your body will also. What you have done to your body cannot be undone anymore than Natsu can stop being a dragon slayer of his will."

Lucy looked down. "Porlyusica, celestial spirit summoning is a lifelong commitment. I'll be a wizard for the rest of my life, because I choose to be. This isn't a game to me. I'm not the kind of girl who does a little magic, then gets married and runs off to a house in the hills. I made this choice and I will continue to make that choice."

The older woman shook her head and held out a ring. "I can respect your resolve, even if I don't understand it. Take this. Put it on, keep it on. Trust me on this."

It was a cute little ring, with a little sky blue stone. Lucy slid it on her pinky finger and decided it looked nice on her, so she simply accepted it and didn't argue. She'd already been an enormous burden to Porlyusica, and she didn't want to argue on top of everything else.

She was about to leave when the old woman said, "May I say something to you, one woman to another?"

Lucy nodded.

"I believe that Laxus sees you and sees the struggle he had. He had a rough childhood because he was a Dreyar, but he was weak and terribly sick. Everyone assumed he would always be like that, and he became frustrated and his own father became ashamed of him and did what he did. He may be a monster now, but that man knows what it's like to feel powerless, to be humiliated, to struggle just to have basic respect. You came along at a time when he's willing to experience camaraderie and compassion."

Porlyusica added some more herbs to her tincture. "Laxus is terrible with women. All of them, all the time. He has never had anything that closely resembles a good relationship with a woman, although I'm certain he has sex."

"N-Not really my business," Lucy shyly said.

"Listen carefully, Lucy. Laxus is a grown man. Your relationship may be platonic now and it may stay like that; only each of you know your own thoughts and feelings. The very nature of what you are doing together involves aggression, it involves him putting his hands on your body, it involves hot sweaty bodies thrown against each other and pounding hearts. It requires trust. There's nothing wrong with any of that. But you are trusting a man with your body. It might only take one spark, and sparks are his specialty. Do you understand?"

Even though really didn't, she felt like the whole conversation was made under some kind of an assumption that she wasn't going to acknowledge. "Yes ma'am."

When Lucy left, she found a cold front had come in and the pleasant fall air was starting to give way to the winter. It was one of her favorite seasons, even though it could be rough on jobs. There was something peaceful about how quiet winter nights were. Then again, she'd read in a book once that humans didn't _love_ winter; they loved their protection from it.

She shivered a little on the way home, and when she got home, she fired up her the little heater and set it carefully, knowing the nights were going to be cold for the next few months.

The blonde bundled up after she took a shower, and, having finally unlocked the kinetics mystery, felt free to work on her novel for the first time in what felt like an eternity. Rifling through the pages, she took her pen in hand and put it down on the paper, but she couldn't even focus.

Telling someone else's story really paled in comparison to how excited she was getting for her own future. She considered the main character of her novel and how her struggles in some ways mirrored her own. Her main character was a somewhat awkward but attractive girl had a truly crazy story, but in the ending she had in her mind, she was always with this nice guy.

She put her pen to paper and started to write about a mysterious man. He wanted to help her, but he had hidden motives. The plot she'd had in mine for the past year was forgotten, and by the time she looked up, her main character was 'looking into dangerous, beautiful eyes' of an older man.

Lucy looked up and it was two thirty in the morning, and she was restless. She wasn't sure why, but she was, and her legs were stiff from being in bed for a week. The blonde changed, slipped her jogging shoes on, resolving to get new ones because they were literally falling apart, and made the run to the dragon's nest.

It was empty and dark, and she only turned on one light, leaving it so dimly lit. She threw off her shoes, put on her headphones, and climbed up on the trampoline.

She bounced slowly at first, and felt the peculiar sensation of her feet soaking up the energy when she landed. The magic seemingly ricocheted in her body into the next movement she made just like when she'd used it in battle, causing her to jump far higher than intended, and Lucy deemed this extremely hazardous.

Like any form of useful magic, the first challenge was figuring out how to use it and not die.

Kinetics was a relief in that it gave her some freedom from being afraid of falling both in training and in real-life situations. Her lack of durability compared to her teammates had always been a source of ire to her, because she could get hurt badly much more easily.

So Lucy closed her eyes and moved slowly at first, trying to control the reaction on a tiny scale first. The ricochet seemed to be really hard on her body anyhow, and she didn't want to tear up her body.

Laxus, a night owl who tended to be up late, stopped by to blow off some steam over a lecture his grandfather had given him over the fact Lucy very well could have died from activating the magic in battle. He wished she had not done that because he caught hell for it from Makarov, Porlyusica, Natsu, Erza, Gray, and Levy.

Lucy sensed him and stopped, pulling the headphone from her ear. "Meeting in the middle if the night again?"

"You got me into kind of a lot of shit, you know," he said.

"Yeah, well. I got thrown off an eighty-foot cliff. Plan B involved breaking all my bones and dying. I'm sorry people hold you responsible for the decisions I make."

She jumped down somewhat fearlessly instead of carefully climbing off.

Laxus asked, "Can you combine your Star Forms?"

"I've honestly never tried because even if I could, it would take a lot magic maintain. But I've been emptying my magic three times a day, and I know I can hold more and I'm recovering it so quickly...maybe."

The idea that she might be able to combine her different forms offered a world of possibilities. Since Laxus had seen her hit the long range shot, he had wondered, but he wanted to give her more time to train because it was clearly going to be a feat.

"Which forms?"

"Let's go outside."

In the chilly winter air, she followed him to the edge of the forest. "Sagittarius and Leo."

Lucy donned Sagittarius first, and then took the Leo key in hand. "Give me your strength, Loke," she whispered.

The key merged with her and Lucy could feel the two kinds of magic churning within her. She drew the bow upward and tried to use everything she had gained while training. She had gained the ability to control the exact amount of magic in each attack and, since this was to see what she could do, she focused all the magic she had in her magic container into one arrow. She envisioned the two magics tangling, and a golden light wrapped around her arrow.

"What's your mark?"

Lucy aimed far. "The top of that pine tree sticking up above the rest of them."

The magic swelled around her into a giant ball of light, and then compressed into the arrow.

When she let it go, it sailed through the air like a shooting star and hit the top of the tree, exploding into a horrifically huge, blinding ball of white light that destroyed that tree and several around it and blasted the tops off all the trees within a thirty-foot radius, sending splinters through the air.

The blonde blinked. "Oops. Whoa. Did I...me. Me. I did that?"

Laxus looked down at her, amusement dancing in his eyes. "Monster."

"I think I need to be troubled if _you're_ calling me that."

The dragon slayer said, "Think about it. Short range options."

Lucy thought about it. "Cancer blades wrapped with water magic, or Regulus Impact, or with Capricorn for speed. Or Taurus for hand-to-hand, with any of those."

She shivered and remembered her coat was inside, but as she dropped her transformation, he snatched her hand and held it up. Lucy gasped and spun to face him, surprised by the sudden movement.

"Did you get a boyfriend I don't know about?" he asked.

When she pulled her hand back, she scowled at him. "Of course not. But if I did, it wouldn't be your business. Why on earth are you even asking?"

Laxus looked down. "Do you know what that ring is? It's a charm that tells about your body. It'll be clear on most days. On days you're fertile, it'll be that color. In other words, if you happened to trip on the way home and land on a cock, you'd be hard up like Evergreen."

Lucy took it off in an instant. "Ick!"

"Did the old man or the hag give it to you?"

"The ha—Porlyusica."

"She have a talk with you about me?"

"Yep."

The two had a long stare, and the man said, "I don't really have any plans for us to have sex. You're attractive and fun but friends with benefits is my maximum emotional capacity and I don't think you're that kind of girl. "

"I don't actually have plans to have sex with anyone," she awkwardly answered as a blush stung her cheeks.

"Personal question?"

Lucy said, "You ask me one, and I get to ask one."

"Fair. What's the deal? You're easily the most attractive girl in the guild. I'm sure men have offered and they probably weren't all bastards. Maybe it's not your persuasion? Or maybe you're waiting to get married or maybe you only like gingers or guys with six fingers or guys with three testicles or whatever."

The blonde shivered again and he threw his coat over her, watching her pull it close around her. "To be honest, I just don't want to. I've never been in a situation where I just wanted it with somebody. And I don't know what I want. When I was a little girl, I had fairy tale dreams and then when I learned what sex was, I just imagined some grand wedding night. But then I started using magic and I stopped thinking about all that."

"You don't get horny?"

She blushed furiously and nodded. "That's two questions. And everyone does. But it's easier to just not bother I think. Am I whore if I just do it, what am I missing if I don't...it's kind of a lot and it's a distraction so I focus on other things. I'm honestly not trying to settle down. This is my priority, and it matters to me."

"That all sounds really annoying. No wonder you're sexually frustrated."

"H-Hey! How can you say that?"

Laxus crossed his arms and glanced down at her. "You become restless in the middle of the night and only go to sleep after an activity that involves your body. Do you need me to connect the dots?"

She wanted to point out she frequently ran into him during her 3 am activities, but knew it would only make her feel more awkward.

Two people, meeting by chance under the light of the moon, needs hidden beneath the surface...she would use this in her book, but forget it actually happened in person.

"Anyway. You asked two questions, so I get two."

"Fine."

Lucy clutched his coat around her. "Porlyusica said you'd never had a good relationship with a woman. So I was wondering...what happened to your mother?"

A distinct scowl formed on his face and he cut his eyes to one side. "She died from complications of childbirth."

"Having you?"

Laxus nodded. "What's your next question?"

"Why don't you have an Exceed?"

"I fucking hate cats. Little fuckers would eat us if they were big enough. The fact that some of them talk and fly honest weirds me the fuck out."

Lucy couldn't help but to laugh at him.

She saw a hint of the sun, and turned. "I don't know anything about anything, but I'm really grateful. Even with magic, I was self-taught. You've invested a lot of time in me for no reason, and I don't really know why, but I'm thankful."

"I have a favor to ask. I want to give Evergreen a gift so she understands I approve of her life choices. I thought a gift for her baby would be appropriate, but I don't really know anything about babies. I've heard they eventually turn into people if you feed them. So could you get something and wrap it up and put my name on the tag?"

Lucy smiled a little. "Sure. I can handle that."

Laxus put a finger up. "But be careful. It's a well-known fact that in a social circle, if one woman gets knocked up, it happens to some of the others also."

"So you're saying pregnancy is _contagious_. Did anyone tell you where babies come from?"

"Think about it. You've seen it happen."

Lucy considered it and remembered several of her parents' servants being pregnant close together, and then some of the girls in her old social circle that were a few years old. "Maybe so, but I'm safe."

The blonde gave him his coat back and went home, slept for a few hours, and woke up mid-morning since there was no training that day in accordance with a slightly more relaxed schedule. Lucy had a lazy morning, and made some pancakes, took a nap with Plue, did some cleaning, and then headed to the guild.

She was halfway there when she saw a newsstand with Sorcerer Weekly. It was a special on the Grand Magic Games, which had been pushed into the winter due to a demon attack on Crocus during the summer.

 _Fairy Tail & the GMG!_

 _Who they should take—who they should leave on the sidelines!_

Her picture was under the word 'sidelines.'

An article posted stats from their performance during their last trip to the games year before last and pointed out that she had a humiliating performance when she fought Flare Corona and an equally humiliating experience with Minerva. Both women had wounded her pretty seriously.

The magazine said it in print quite clearly.

 _Lucy Heartfilia is an alum of Sorcerer Weekly, but it might be best for her to stick to writing on the sidelines and stay out of danger. Out verdict: Sidelines!_

Lucy was angry, and she felt a lump in her throat.

When she got to the guild, there were probably twenty copies of the stupid magazine all over the place, and everyone was there, gathering around a table in the middle of the guild. Makarov was standing on the table, and Natsu and Laxus were on each side of the bench. Natsu was clearly fired up and excited, and Laxus looked as casually bored as always.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Levy answered, "We're going to enter two teams into the games. Natsu and Laxus are going to be the team captains. They're going to draw cards and whoever gets the high card picks first. Then they'll take turns until both teams are filled."

Makarov shuffled the cards, and sat the deck between the two, and Natsu and Laxus each took a card.

Laxus sighed and put the two of hearts down, and Natsu flipped over the ten of spades.

"Gildarts," Natsu said.

Laxus grimaced. "He's participating?"

"He is, but he didn't want to be a captain," Makarov explained.

Best case scenario, he might be able to win up to the endgame unless he could defeat Gildarts himself, which he wasn't entirely confident in. Laxus sighed and made his selection.

"Lucy."

He would have chosen her anyway, but he'd seen the article and wanted to make a point. So he chose her before anyone. Before s-class wizards, before the usual suspects, before the wizards on the magazine's imaginary rosters. He heard Macao make half of a comment, but the words died on his lips when he felt electricity course down his spine in threat.

In some ways, it wasn't even about Lucy. It was about the whispers that questioned him, that made accusations about their 'training.' He wanted to take her to the games and watch her absolutely annihilate her competition because she was right. There honestly were a lot of unnecessary things said because she was _nice,_ because she was attractive, because she was a woman.

Natsu was actually pretty pissed Lucy had been picked, because he'd wanted her on his team. She was talented, and he didn't care what anyone said—he'd take her with him to the ends of the earth.

"Erza."

"Gray."

"Gajeel."

"Mirajane."

"Elfman."

"Juvia."

Makarov scribbled on a piece of paper as they called names and then announced the teams:

"Team A: Natsu, Gildarts, Erza, Gajeel, and Elfman"

"Team B: Laxus, Lucy, Gray, Mirajane, and Juvia"

As soon as the choices were made, the guild went back to normal, and Natsu climbed the stairs and sat across from Laxus. "I want Lucy on my team. I'll trade you."

Laxus looked up from his beer. "Trade me what?"

"Erza."

"Nope."

Natsu practically bit his own tongue off but finally offered, "Gildarts."

"Not interested. The goal of sending two teams isn't so maybe we can win. This year, we're shooting for the two top spots. If Gildarts is on the same team as I am, we'll fucking trounce the lot of you and you know it."

He looked down at the table. "I'm not really okay with you right now, Laxus."

It was the sober, calm way Natsu said it that caught Laxus' attention. "With regard to the teams?"

"With regard to Lucy."

"Be specific."

Natsu looked down. "Lucy has always been on our team since always. We do a lot of things together. I feel like you took her from our team, but I know she spends time with you because she wants to be strong."

Then he looked up again and watched Laxus' face as he sat slouched in the chair with his arms crossed, legs propped up on the table. "This is a temporary arrangement. But I literally put her through hell and watched her crawl out. Lucy is my showpiece, and it would make no sense for her to be on your team at the games. Outside of the games, she's Team Natsu down to her bone marrow."

Natsu nodded in understanding and went down to pick a job off the board. "Lucy, you want to do a job?" he called.

Lucy shook her head. "I need to work on my training, but next time!"

 _ **Please Review!**_

 _ **Special thanks to W1n6s-0f-f1r3, xxshyxx, kurahieiritr JIO, Paname, Adabs18, SilverGhostKitsune, boyceashlee, chelsannful, Person, Littlest1, and Darkfae7 for reviewing!**_


	5. Lucy Games!

The night before the Grand Magic Games, Lucy had a blast.

By the time they arrived, Lucy had been training hard for five months, and for the last month, their team had been having training sessions in the East Forest. She would have been happy on either team, but it was nice to be with Laxus, Gray, Juvia, and Mirajane.

The Grand Magic Games had officially named them Fairy Thunder, and Natsu's team was Fairy Fire. Everywhere in town, people were placing bets, and unfortunately, Fairy Thunder was not a favorite because Fairy Thunder had Juvia and Lucy, poor performers in the x791 games, and Gray, who hadn't done so stellar either.

Their team lead had enough 'I don't give a shit' that it was practically contagious and as they chilled in the hot tub at their inn, life was great. The hot tub was fairly small, and Laxus and Gray sat on one side with beers and the ladies sat on the other side, sipping mixed drinks that a server had given them.

Mirajane sipped the pink concoction. "This is a Crocus Bloom. I taste cherries, pomegranate, and cheap rum...maybe it would be a hit at Fairy Tail."

"Don't get drunk. The opening game isn't until three, but honestly, just no," Laxus instructed.

Juvia looked up at him. "Laxus, you're the only one who is almost drunk. Juvia is practicing moderation." The water mage leaned back. "That tingle is pleasant to Juvia..."

Gray had noticed the tingly water and correctly attributed it to the presence of Laxus, and then realized if all the water was like that, then Juvia..."Is his lightning inside of you?"

Laxus choked a little because he hadn't considered it either.

Juvia answered, "My dear Gray, Juvia would never let another man inside of her."

Raucous laughter broke out and Lucy stretched her legs until her toes poked up in the water. Laxus gave it a little glare as it emerged, and so she kicked her foot and splashed his dry face and hair.

The hot tub exploded into a splash war and everyone was thoroughly soaked by the time the conflict died down.

Laxus looked up at the stars. "We have a truce with Fairy Fire. In group competitions, only attack them if there are no other opponents are left. Tomorrow is the qualifying round—don't be too concerned with winning. If we take too many risks, we might knock ourselves out of the games. We only need to qualify."

Gray sighed. "What are we going to do about Gildarts? Even if we make it to the last day, he's a problem."

"I can take care of him," Laxus said.

"Are you sure?"

"Do you win any battles on the premise of 'maybe?'"

Mirajane stood up to get out of the water and Laxus stopped her.

"One other thing," he said.

"What?"

Laxus looked from one woman to the next. "I made a decision concerning how we are going to play the game. You're going to either love or hate your uniforms, but we're going to win without playing cute. No tits, no jiggling asses, no bikinis, no thighs, no sexy hair, no let's-model-instead-of-fighting, no taking your clothes off. We're going to be monsters, and that's it. Those of you who transform, don't put on a show with it."

Mirajane asked, "Why?"

It was Gray that answered. "We're not here to prove our guild has beautiful women—everyone already knows that."

There was a weird tension in the air, and Lucy asked, "Laxus, are you having a feminist moment over there?"

Laxus kind of _was,_ but it wasn't like that. As their team leader, he'd been up late one night, reviewing articles and statistics, and somewhere lost in the sheer volume of all that was written about the Grand Magic Games they'd attended in x791, he read an article written about how gorgeous Mirajane was until she transformed into combat form, and some comment about how Juvia was pretty but empty-headed, and how Lucy was voted best ass.

And then he woke up the next day and watched Lucy nurse horrific blisters on her feet on the same day that a new issue of Sorcerer Weekly came out recognizing not the talent on their team, but the fact that three of the members were beautiful women. One they wanted to see in a bikini? Mirajane. One they wanted to pose nude? Juvia. One they wanted to take on a date? Lucy.

The women had trained so hard, and the juxtaposition of their often-painful struggle for strength with how they were spoken and written about was actually bothersome to him. The fact was that the vast majority of the men who were responsible for these ideas and their popularity would never—not for one day in their lives—be worthy of commenting on any of them.

Laxus decided to throw a monkey wrench in the whole machine.

"Kind of tired of reading about your tits," he answered as he looked down at her. "I think you can show them something a little more interesting."

XXX

They looked just a like, all three of them.

Their uniforms consisted of somewhat form-fitting black pants, a black tank top that came into a mock turtleneck, and a black coat with gold piping that was cut into a v-shape in the front.

Without the coat, the only visible skin on Lucy's body was her arms, half of her neck, and her face. She had a gold belt, and a gold arm cuff with the Fairy Tail emblem, and Laxus and Gray matched except for the lack of accessories.

All three of the women wore their hair in a neat, high ponytail and wore a little cat-eye liner, mascara, and lip gloss.

Mirajane—Sorcerer Weekly's pinup girl—was silently the biggest supporter of this peculiar little protest they were making.

When they made it to the stadium, they found out there were sixty teams of five, meaning there were three hundred wizards and very few of them would be left once the preliminary round was over. The teams were in little clumps all over the arena, and the crowd was steadily rumbling in anticipation.

Fairy Fire was all the way on the other side of the of the stadium, but Laxus and Natsu happened to make eye contact and the fire dragon slayer threw his index finger and thumb up in what was officially the unofficial Fairy Tail salute and Laxus returned the gesture because this was as close to 'good luck' as they were going to get from as far away as they were.

Mato—the King of Fiore in disguise—dropped into the middle of the stadium. He kicked the games off, went over a few rules, welcomed the guests, and then introduced the game.

"This year's qualifying game is called Pendulum."

A magic circle appeared in the sky, along with a hundred huge swinging pendulums that were shaped like upside-down T's. Some swung fast, some slow, some to a high angle, others only slightly, There were tiny stationary islands between them.

Every dragon slayer groaned inwardly if not audibly.

"There are three hundred flags hidden above. Once the first wizard claims a flag, it will dissolve and be credited to them as a number above their head. If you fall from the maze due to an attack or within twenty seconds of an attack, you are out, and the number of flags you have will be added to your attacker although your team will be able to continue. If you fall for any other reason, you will randomly respawn somewhere else in the maze. You will begin the game together, but falling will scatter teams across the map because team members will reappear in different places. The match will end in 30 minutes and the teams with the most flags will move on to compete in the games."

A five minute count down started, and the teams started to appear on the floating stationary islands with the instruction not to move.

Fairy Thunder started near the edge, which was a fairly nasty disadvantage.

Lucy thought about everything and said, "I have an idea."

"Go ahead."

"So the point of this game is to collect the flags which are hidden everywhere. So let's collect flags, jump, respawn somewhere else, and do it again. Everyone else is going to think of falling as bad, but we can use it to our advantage to grab a lot of the flags in the first few minutes."

Mirajane smirked. "That's a good idea."

Laxus took the idea and ran with it a little further. "If you get into a battle or are targeted by someone you can't easily beat, jump. Also, don't fight with anyone who doesn't have any flags. The only reason to fight in this game is to take flags from someone else. This battle will likely have two stages: first a majority of the flags will be collected and then there will be fighting over them, Once the flags have been collected, try to regroup if not as an entire team at least in pairs."

Lucy and the rest of the team took their coats off, knowing even though it was chilly, they were going to be hot running the pendulum maze.

They were biceps and game faces, clad in all black.

When the gong sounded, Lucy, Mirajane, Gray, and Juvia all jumped off the platform and reappeared in opposite corners.

Lucy partially tapped into Leo Star Form, borrowing some of Loke's cat-like agility, and Taurus, for strength. She leapt from the island she appeared on to the first pendulum and ran straight across it to jump and grab a flag from the air before landing on the next one.

The pendulum was over a foot wide, and after months of fighting on a balance beam four inches wide, this was actually easy. She crouched low in the middle of the second pendulum as another swung by overhead and she jumped onto it easily and found a flag affixed to its stem.

She grabbed her third flag jumping onto one of the islands and was waiting for another pendulum to swing by when someone landed behind her.

The first opponent she ran into in the maze was Milliana, who jumped down and saw the three over Lucy's head. Milliana had five flags, meaning if they battled, whoever won would then have eight flags.

Her choices were to either jump and save her three flags or fight and gamble to get eight.

They were both considering a battle when Lucy reached for her whip. "You want to do this?"

Milliana nodded with a smile.

She ran at Lucy, claws bared, and Lucy ducked and kicked, charging the impact with Regulus power, which created an explosion of light on impact and sent Milliana flying to the edge. She flipped up onto the nearest pendulum and Lucy followed, landing easily on her feet.

An orange tube wrapped around her ankle and Lucy wrapped her whip around Milliana's ankle and both tugged at the same moment. Milliana went head-first onto the pendulum, but Lucy caught herself with two hands behind her head.

Milliana hit her head and her tube retracted for a second, and when the pendulum swung to its apex, she slid off the edge and fell, so her flags were added to Lucy's.

Lucy didn't see anymore flags, so she dropped and respawned somewhere else, and practically landed on top of Natsu. She was happy, then cautious, then she remembered their agreement with that team.  
"Natsu!"

He was sick to his stomach, but he had thirteen flags and was trying to regain his composure on an island that wasn't moving.

She gave him a high five. "Good going, with thirteen!"

Natsu frowned. "Well..."

They dodged as an energy attack crashed between them. Rufus from Sabretooth, who had eleven flags, was standing on a pendulum and had, up to that moment, been assaulting Natsu from the safety of the moving object, knowing well that dragon slayers were at a disadvantage.

"This guy!"

Lucy ran and jumped up to where he was, and without any warning whatsoever, got very close to him. She and Laxus had discussed this particular wizard before the games. To conserve her magic, she dropped Star Form and pulled her Gemini key out.

Rufus couldn't necessary use _any_ of Lucy's celestial spirit magic because even if he memorized the magic, he was not her and therefore could not use her contracts.

But she could copy him.

Gemini took the form of Rufus, and Rufus seemed _sorely_ confused to be face to face with himself. He thought it was just a clone of some kind, but when he attacked, Gemini dodged and countered with an attack he'd just memorized that morning.

Rufus might have been able to memorize and use magic, but Gemini could do the whole show, and knew his thoughts and intents.

A melodramatic sense of devastation washed over the Sabertooth wizard. "I've been... _memorized._ "

Gemini—ever playful and mischievous—tipped Rufus' hat at him. "This is how you copy."

Rufus felt oddly violated by this, and he knew it was absurd for him of all people to be upset about such a thing.

Gemini turned and said, "Natsu, he thinks you're cute."

Rufus, always proper, was instantly flustered. "That's not true!"

"Also, Sabretooth's strategy is attack people with a lot of flags in pairs," the spirit said, meeting Lucy's eyes.

Natsu had a lot of flags.

Lucy nodded in understanding, and she looked around for another member of Sabretooth. A member who wasn't going to fight on the pendulum, who couldn't be seen, who was lurking...who would have sprung to attack had Gemini called him by name.

Natsu recovered and flew through the air and hit a distracted Rufus, knocking him out of the game and capturing his flags. Lucy sent Gemini home, donning her Sagittarius and Leo Star forms. Her bow and arrow were in hand, her feet carefully poised.

Natsu landed back on the still ground, now with twenty-four flags. "Sorry, I wanted you to get those flags. You earned 'em. But we couldn't miss that guy dropping his guard. Let me make up to you. Let's go find somebody and knock 'em out of the game."

"That's okay. We're doing fine on our team, I think. As long as both of the Fairy Tail teams make it, it's fine," she said as she turned and as soon as Natsu jumped away from her, she heard jumped to a nearby pendulum and wondered where _he_ was.

The shadow came from the side and it came so fast, but there was a moment time seemed frozen. He was fast, and she could dodge and jump off the edge and appear somewhere else or she could use this half-second to strike back. It was unrealistic to assume she'd beat him in an all out battle.

Lucy bet on herself to win for once.

The celestial wizard slung the bow upward and pulled the ready arrow, charging it with blinding light. He was too close, and her legs slid out from under her to put even a couple of more feet between them.

The magic exploded in the tiny area between them, and the abundance of light threw Rogue from the shadows and plummeting down and out of the game.

Rogue had no idea what had happened, because he too read Sorcerer Weekly and according to that fine publication, it should have been an easy defeat.

Rogue had twenty-six flags, bringing her total to thirty-four.

Lucy saw Natsu had frozen, but once he saw she was fine, he gave her a thumbs up, told her she was great, and wished her good luck. Lucy did the same and then jumped and reappeared somewhere else to grab two flags when an announcement came:

" _All 300 flags have been collected from the maze. There are only twenty wizards left in the maze mostly due to an electrical disturbance."_

"Laxus, due to Laxus," she whispered under her breath.

While every one else on the team collected flags, he was at a high disadvantage because of the pendulums. Laxus knew if he landed on one and got sick someone would attack immediately, so he'd bounced around in lightning form and flat knocked people out of the maze with no warning to collect their flags or to generally get them off the map. He'd seen several others doing the same thing, so there was a dwindling number of wizards left in the maze. Distantly, he heard the speakers down below announce Lucy had taken Rogue's flags and smirked darkly at her success.

"That's my girl," he quietly whispered, and was glad immediately he wasn't close to any of the microphones that were planted everywhere to catch their assorted trash-talking.

He landed on one of the stationary islands and stopped to look for the other people on the team when Jura jumped down with him. Laxus had forty-six flags and Jura had thirty.

Laxus pivoted slowly. "Is it time?"

Jura nodded.

"I didn't know Council members could play," he taunted.

The older man said. "I quit. I'm sure you already know that."

Lyon joined the fray and Laxus commented, "Two against one? Kind of bothersome and cheap."

Jura shrugged. "This isn't a duel. The object of this game is to collect flags. Fair is not a consideration."

Juvia, who had three flags and was extremely uneasy with the entire game, jumped down to where he was. She was not good at this game, and she'd seen Lucy running agile and confident, she felt something a little like friendly envy. But once the announcement was made that the flags had all been collected, she'd tried to regroup and Laxus was the first one of her teammates that she'd seen.

Lyon swooned. "Juvia, my love...you look as beautiful as always, but I won't make the same mistake as last time. I cherish you always, but you're my enemy right now."

"You and these ice wizards...honestly, Juvia," Laxus said.

Juvia nodded. "He is a love rival!"

The lightning mage and Jura both stared in confusion and Jura said, "I think you are quite mistaken."

Juvia attacked quite abuptly, and Laxus stacked his magic with hers.

Her attack electrified in the air and then when Juvia realized he was wrapping her water in lightning, she caused a puddle for form on the floor and he brought down his trademark Raging Bolt, which blasted Lyon off and into oblivion below and sent Jura jumping onto one of the pendulums where he was forced to dodge several smaller bolts of lightning.

Jura looked down at them. "Water and lightning...superb. You chose your team well."

He dodged shards of ice that flew from the darkness toward him, and Gray jumped to the end of the pendulum.

Jura decided to conserve his flags by dropping and reappearing elsewhere as their team had also strategized, but right when he dropped, a Satan Soul Mira zipped down at max speed, remembering the rules. If they fell within a span of an enemy attacking, all their flags went to their opponent. He made a wall of earth, she crashed through it and punched him in the nose just as he crossed the barrier and vanished.

Juvia shifted uncomfortably. "Juvia is bad at this competition."

"You probably just kept Lamia Scale from taking some of our flags, so not really. Gildarts got knocked out of the maze in the first five minutes, so not every game is for everybody," Gray answered.

Lucy jumped down with them and Laxus looked at the numbers above their heads and tallied their totals.

Laxus: 46  
Mirajane: 40  
Lucy: 36  
Gray: 29  
Juvia: 3

Laxus listened to the frantic explosion of sounds and looked up at the clock to see there were only ten seconds left. Their team had over half the flags, so they were undoubtedly ranked first.

The game ended, and they reappeared on the stadium floor to raucous screaming and cheering, with flower petals reigning down on them.

An announcement came then, "Due to the fact that the top two teams eliminated the other competitors, they are included in order of the last ones to be disqualified."

1\. Fairy Thunder – 154  
2\. Fairy Fire – 146  
3\. Lamia Scale – 0  
4\. Sabertooth – 0  
5\. Blue Pegasus – 0  
6\. Mermaid Heel – 0  
7\. Quatro Cerebus – 0  
8\. Scarmiglione – 0

Lucy felt such a rush when it was finally over, and in the middle of jumping up and down and hugging Mirajane, Juvia, and Gray, somehow she forgot some things and jumped into Laxus' arms and screamed excitedly in his ear, neither of which he particularly appreciated.

XXX

It was midnight.

They were all still in the bar reserved exclusively for Fairy Tail. The entire guild was partying, some more drunk than others. Some dancing, some laughing, some retelling what they'd seen on the lacrimatrons or experienced inside of the maze.

On her team, only she and Laxus were still left, and when she stepped out the door, he followed, bottle in hand.

"I really don't need an escort," she said,

Laxus caught up to her. "You get kidnapped on the first Thursday of every fourth month. Besides, you're a lightweight. I think I saw you with two drinks and you're acting a little bit _impaired_. Anyway, it's getting cold and I heard there might be a snowstorm. I was going back anyway."

"Boo," she frowned at him and stuck her tongue out.

Lucy jumped up on a little rail and walked across it easily. "Have I told you that I am writing a book?"

"No. I'm sure if you had I would have told you that is a grossly unnecessary distraction. What kind of book? Perhaps a piece on the endlessly vast understanding common to teenage girls?"

Lucy did a cartwheel on the little rail and kicked about an inch from his nose. "Or, perhaps a nonfiction work on the assorted social struggles of male dragon slayers? Boring! It's a novel. You know, a fictional story about fictional people."

"Not really my cup of tea."

With a little giggle, she looked up. "You prefer your books short? And maybe with pictures?"

"You are feisty after a win."

"Anway, there's a character that was inspired by you."

This made him wildly curious. "I'm in your book."

"No, you're on the sidewalk on Dandelion street being a jerk. Noah Archer is in my book."

Laxus wasn't sure how he felt about this, but he did know he wasn't particularly fond of that name. "What's this Noah Archer's problem?"

"What makes you think he has a problem?"

"If he didn't have a problem, I think it would make for a pretty boring book."

Lucy paused. "Oh, that's right, it would. My book is all about people and their issues. Trying to go on adventures, grow, and fall in love. Noah's problem is that he's kind of an aloof jerk. He's pretty good looking though."

"In other words...I'm in your book."

"Yeah, whatever."

Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by Natsu and Happy, who invited Lucy to go sledding on the one nearby mountain that was already covered in snow, and she was gone, just like that.

Laxus wasn't sure why he was bothered that she'd left him; he preferred to walk alone.

A strong, cold wind blew, hinting at the coming storm. There was no reason for him to worry, because she could not only take care of herself just fine, she was with a walking forest fire of a man.

He was getting used to her being around and he'd told himself all along he wouldn't do that.

So Laxus did what any man would do:

He went to the inn, and broke into the girls' room while Mirajane was showering and Juvia was with Gray having some _quality alone time_ in the closed sitting room. It wasn't hard to find the bundle of papers and while Lucy partied with Natsu, Laxus jacked her wind-reading glasses and her novel, went to the guys' room, and took a glimpse into the mind of Lucy.

Laxus stopped at the third chapter and read it once, twice, three times.

And then he just sat there and stared at the book with a grimace.

When Lucy came home, she was still wired and the wind was howling. At the time, no one knew it would be so severe, so Lucy showered and was getting ready for bed when she noticed her most prized possession—her little stack of papers—was missing.

She kicked herself and stomped down the hall.

The door flew open, and he was sitting on the edge of his bed, with the stack of papers next to him.

"I'm sorry for stealing your book. I only read the first three chapters. Here."

He held them out in apology and she snatched them.

Lucy looked down and cried, "You're an idiot and a jerk."

Laxus licked his lips and looked down. "Who is Harry? He's a real person, I'm sure of it."

"It's fiction. None of it is real."

In chapter three, the book's prolific author pretty vividly described one character beating the living hell out of the protagonist. She endured all kinds of things and never told anyone in order to protect the person responsible. The words practically dripped real emotion, and he could feel her broken little heart between the lines. "Who is it?"

Lucy wrapped her fingers around the door knob and then locked the door. "You can't tell anyone. It would make it all really worthless."

Laxus nodded.

She pulled her fitted tank over her head and pointed to a spot on her rib cage. "Here."

Her leaner body made it easy to feel the knobby protrusion from as healed rib.

"Here."

"Here."

"Here."

Laxus waited for her to put her shirt back on. "What the fuck happened to your body?"

Lucy sat down next to him, but on the end of the bed. "I hadn't been in the guild that long. I woke up, and was kicking me, stomping me. I never fought him. I was tied up for some of it. He would pick me up by the hair and throw me like a doll and then keep kicking me. The whole middle of my body turned black and purple and green from bruises, and I guess there was bleeding inside. I kind of puffed out a little and I passed blood from some different places."

He listened intently. "Who."

"Gajeel."

"You're shitting me."

"It was before he joined the guild, when all that Phantom Lord stuff happened. At first I didn't tell anyone because I thought it was all my fault and I didn't realize it was bad as it was. Right around the time I felt like telling somebody the pain wouldn't go away, he was suddenly in our guild, and I knew if anyone knew how bad it was..."

Laxus nodded. "Gramps would never have let him join the guild if he knew he almost beat you to death. There's a difference between everything else that went on and _that_."

Lucy's head sank. "Gajeel needed a second chance."

"You say that now because you know him. Did you feel that way then?"

"No."

She wasn't sure why—maybe it was few years of pent up anger—but she felt her bottom lip quiver, and she didn't want to cry in front of him. "He _liked_ it," she whispered as she broke, "And it was a game. It was a game to my father. It was a game to Gajeel. It was a game to you. Everyone went on like it was all okay, but my pain was real and it didn't go away."

Lucy felt an arm encircle her and pull her against him. Her tears soaked through his shirt, and he considered himself and his assorted failings concerning the little blonde. They asked for help, and he'd refused, throwing an oafish comment at her. The next time he saw her, he told her it was all her fault that everything had happened.

Lucy finished crying and wiped her face off. "Gajeel is a good man. I'd trust him with my life any day. People get messed up in life and they do messed up things and sometimes they enjoy them. I-I hate that I had to be the one, but we don't really get to pick what hurts us. I'm grateful to have a friend and an ally in him. You too, Laxus. I love you both as my guild family, no matter what happened."

"Lucy..."

"It's all right. Everything is okay now."

"Anything I can do to make it up to you?"

She was quiet for a while, and she took the pages of her book. "There is one thing. If you'd read to the end of what I've written so far, you'd know that two of the characters are about to kiss. Explain, in vivid detail, what it feels like to kiss from a man's perspective, because the scene is written from his vantage point."

Laxus squished his eyebrows and most of his features together. "You would probably be better off asking someone else."

"Why?"

"I don't like kissing. If I described it to you, it would be like a child describing a vegetable they don't like to eat."

Of all the absurd things that had ever come from his mouth, this was the king of them all.

She couldn't help but break out into a giggle with her puffy eyes. "Let's hear it."

He thought carefully, and spoke in a voice that might have been sexy if used for any other words, "And then, he put his hands on her hips, and leaned in close. She smelled strongly of onions and estrogen, and he reeked of beer, testosterone, and body odor, but they were both more horny than they were disgusted with one another. He leaned in closer, bumping noses as his lips were too high. They both turned their heads the same way awkwardly, and she kissed the left side of his bottom lip as their foreheads bumped together. He stuck his tongue in her mouth and plumbed, but she'd already had a tonsilectomy and an exploration of her mouth revealed she had no molars, probably due to tooth decay. He wondered how she chewed like that. Their front teeth banged into each other. A long string of saliva stretched between them when they came up for air. It was awkward and unsatisfying."

By the time he got to the end of his dramatic description, she was laughing so hard she could barely breath. "Laxus, that's so awful. Whenever I do have my first kiss, I'm going to try so hard not to remember that."

"You've never been kissed?"

"Not really looking forward to it at this point," she laughed.

"Most people like it. You might."

She gave him a mischievous grin. "Laxus, I think you'd enjoy kissing the right girl. I can so use this in my book! He'll know she's the right one because he'll get lost in kissing her and he will love it!"

Laxus sighed. "Whatever you want. As long as you don't drink anymore. Alcohol kind of kicks your ass."

"Boo."

"Goodnight, Lucy."

She rose to leave and gave him a little smile. "Thanks for hearing me."

 _ **Please Review!**_

 _Special thanks to TheFangirlingFanboy, W1n6s-0f-F1r3, aoutre, kurahieiritr JIO, Darkfae7, Aviend, Adabs18, Littlest1, boyceashlee, silverghostkitsune, tiernank, westerngoddess, flameyowl, tina, and paname for reviewing!_


	6. Lucy Duel!

At the second day of the Grand Magic Games, there was a new promotional poster.

Laxus stared at it for a while the first time he saw it.

A camera hidden in the pendulum maze snapped a photograph of Lucy and Rogue in the instant that she fired her arrow at him. It was a little dark in the maze, but the blinding light from the arrow made everything seem black except what it illuminated—their faces, Lucy's shiny golden hair, and the Fairy Tail cuff on her arm.

Rogue was half hanging out of the shadows, a somewhat villainous expression on his face as his red eyes fixed on Lucy. The woman was in a low crouch, one leg bent with her other toe pointed. Her back was arched as she held the bow, and the arrow had just been released. Her eyes determined, her expression unafraid.

This photo would cover Sorcerer Weekly, and would be seen now and then for years because it was perfect. Light versus dark and woman versus man, it was iconic, and Lucy looked so gorgeous in it. Even Laxus couldn't deny it.

Lucy seemed embarrassed by it, and Rogue would tell them later that this photo caused children to cry when they saw him because it made him look like he was 'very literally...Satan incarnate.'

There was five inches of snow on the ground the morning when they woke up, which wasn't serious. The temperature dropped quite a bit, but in the stadium, it was still quite warm.

The games' format had changed a little since x791, due to criticisms the games weren't fair. No one really knew how matches were decided, so they were changed to being random according to a schedule. Days Two through Six featured one group event and eight fifteen minute matches instead of four thirty minute matches.

Everyone had to participate in one group event and two duel matches, then day Seven was a rest day and Day Eight was the glorious grand finale, which was unchanged.

They were given a schedule, and they gathered in their designated place in the stands to fill it out.

"Ideally, it would make sense to make sure no one participates in more than one event in one day," he said, "And that no one has a fighting match two days in a row."

They filled out the schedule carefully, and handed it in to the officials.

Lucy was set to do a group event on Day Four and fight on Day One and Day Three. That meant her off days were Day Two and Day Five. Her heart pumped a little fast when she realized that meant she'd be fighting very shortly, but she felt ready.

Her match would be selected randomly from the pool of people entered to participate in Day 1 – Fight 2, so she wondered who it might be.

The group event for the day was called 'Gravity,' and Juvia and Natsu were participating from the Fairy Tail teams. The object of the game was to climb to the top of a fake mountain inside a bubble with gravity that made them fall 'up.' The goal was at the top, but if they arrived there without touching eight different check points, they were out.

It was comically difficult and hilarious to watch from the sidelines. Everyone participating was disoriented, trying to climb downward, and one misstep and they'd shoot upward and have to drag themselves back down to the bottom.

From the sidelines, Fairy Thunder really, truly wanted Juvia to do well because she'd had a rough time in the pendulum, and halfway through the game, she suddenly started doing amazingly well. She wasn't particularly fast but her movements tended to be more deliberate and carefully thought out.

She made it to the top third, Natsu came in second because Hibiki fell on him in the middle of the competition. Rufus finished first, putting Sabertooth at the top of the scoreboard.

When they were clearing the Gravity event from the stadium, Laxus stretched, suddenly seeming very serious.

Lucy smiled at him. "Ready?"

"Are you?" he asked as he headed down to the arena.

The names were put into a magic randomizer, and the first match was called.

" _Laxus Dreyar versus Minerva Orland!"_

She ran after him to the little tunnel at the entrance to the arena. "Wait! Be careful. I know you're...you know...you. But Minerva can be a little sadistic."

He turned a looked down at her and connected the name to the wizard that had all but tortured Lucy in the x791 Games. "You're worried about me? That's cute. Now get ready, because this is going to be a short fight." He took off his coat and gave it to her.

Minerva put her best game face on, but she couldn't help but sweat a little. The only frame of comparison between the two of them was that during Alvarez, she'd been defeated miserably by a dead Wahl, and Wahl was dead because of Laxus. There were fearsome stories about him. Fairy Tail was so full of monsters she had a list of people she didn't want to fight: Gildarts, Natsu, and this one standing before her.

"I was hoping to fight Erza," she commented.

Laxus shrugged. "Sorry, no catfight for you."

Minerva teleported him into her space to strike him, and he headbutted her so hard she stumbled backwards and then took lightning form and zipped around her to land a powerful kick to her back just like the one she'd given Lucy during the Naval Battle.

Laxus brought a raging bolt down on her and while she was laying on her face, rolled her onto her back with his foot. "Get up."

She chanted something, and suddenly there was a huge statue in the arena.

It exploded powerfully, and the only way he could block it was with expending a fairly enormous amount of magic power, during which she teleported him in between his magic and the explosion, causing it to hit him full force.

Laxus cursed under his breath, and hit the ground face-first.

His fingertips twitched and then got still.

Lucy froze.

Had Laxus just lost?

Minerva felt relief as he lay there motionless and the crowd broke out into cheers. But, for good measure, she teleported him in front of her and attacked him again.

His eyes snapped open as she laughed.

"What do you have to say now?"

He blew lightning breath into her mouth as it gaped open in laughter, blasting her into the wall. Six consecutive lightning blasts later, she was left twitching on the ground. She was honestly done after two, and the extra four were for settling a score.

Laxus crouched next to her to answer her question. "That was for Lucy, but we'll keep that between us. Got that?"

She nodded.

He won, but he was surprised to be bleeding from the battle.

When he entered the little tunnel to leave the arena, Lucy was standing there with his coat, breathing a little heavy. She put it over his shoulders, and used a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe blood from the corner of his mouth.

Laxus took it from her hands. "Stop worry about me. I'm not going to die. You're going to fight in Round Two. Focus. If you win or lose, it doesn't matter—at least, that's what I want to say. I want to say it's most important that you do your best, but that's not it at all. So win."

"I wonder who I'm going to fight," she nervously said.

"Something Gildarts once told me: It doesn't matter who your enemy is. It matters who you are. Then he kicked my ass. I honestly still don't get it, but you're deep like that," he answered.

The rest of the first round matches played out:

Match 1: Fairy Thunder Laxus vs Sabertooth Minerva – Fairy Thunder  
Match 2: Scarmiglione Deadtooth vs Lamia Scale Toby Horhota – Lamia Scale  
Match 3: Mermaid Heel Beth Vanderwood vs Quatro Cerebus Nobarly – Mermaid Heel  
Match 4: Fairy Fire Erza Scarlet vs Blue Pegasus Ichiya Kotobuki – Fairy Fire

Second Round:

Match 1: Scarmiglione Cerulean vs Mermaid Heel Milliana – Scarmiglione  
Match 2: Lamia Scale Lyon Bastia vs Sabertooth Rufus Orga – Lamia Scale  
Match 3: Fairy Fire Gajeel Redfox vs Blue Pegasus Ren Atasuki – Fairy Fire 

Lucy still hadn't been called as she waited there at the edge of the dark entrance to the arena with Laxus, her heart about to pound out of her chest. "So I fight last today."

"The only team that hasn't gone in this round is Quatro Cerebus," he answered.

The sun was starting to go down, and the air was getting a little chilly, but she took her coat off and gave it to him just as he'd done for her. "I can do this."

" _ **The final match of the day will be between Fairy Thunder Lucy Heartfilia and Quatro Cerebus Bacchus Groh!"**_

Lucy felt her heart kick into high gear.

"He's going to be very tough, but you can beat him. If you really want it, you will. It might be one of those battles where you need a few bandages afterward, but you can do it," Laxus said.

The blonde nodded. "I'll do it. I'll win."

She took to steps and he grabbed her hand. "Hold on."

Lucy looked up as he dug through the pocket of his coat for his magic headphones.

"You won't be able to hear anything useful over the crowd screaming, and he'll try to piss you off," he put them on her ears and activated them, causing loud music to blare in her ears.

The blonde was steeled her nerves and stepped out to face her opponent.

Bacchus was lounging on the ground. "And I hate to hit pretty girls. What a shame. How about if I win, you spend the night with me?"

Lucy didn't hear any of this and was determined, and her expression said all he needed to hear.

Somewhere up in the stands, Makarov watched her stare down her opponent, but what was most curious to him was that she was wearing those spiked headphones. There was no doubt as to where she'd gotten them, and they'd been missing from the stands—both of them—since before Laxus went to fight.

Lucy considered all of her options. The match would only last for fifteen minutes, and Bacchus was going to be hitting her, which would cause her to generate more magic using the kinetics. That meant she had an enormous amount of magic to budget over the minutes she had to fight.

Laxus told her the best advantage she could ever gain was the one that was unique to the situation she was in, so she considered what she could do to him and only him.

Keys in hand, she spoke. "I'm coming for you, so get ready!"

Lucy summoned Capricorn and Scorpio and put on Gemini Star Dress.

She could feel magic practically bleeding from her, but Scorpio and Capricorn did what they do. In pure hand-to-hand, Capricorn was an absolute beast, and Scorpio dominated at range, so Bacchus was dodging attacks and trying to make a move on her.

Lucy knew he'd come in close when he could, and when he did, the angle was wrong for her real objective, and she blocked an attack that was so hard it sent a dull ache through her arms even though she absorbed the impact as magic power using the kinetics magic.

She let him hit her once, twice, three, four times, and her magic was full again.

Laxus watched from the sidelines as Bacchus was swept up into the crazy little world of Lucy Heartfilia. She had some kind of a plan, but he couldn't tell what it was. He'd actually never seen her use Gemini Star Dress before, but what she was doing was a tactic to distract him—she couldn't beat Bacchus with Scorpio and Capricorn.

But Bacchus had to fight them to get to her, and when he came in low, her hand moved and she swiped the gourd at his side before he noticed it.

Bacchus decided to try and send the spirits home so he could work on Lucy, so he was battling Scorpio when Lucy focused on him, turning the gourd up to drink his magic booze in her Gemini dress.

Lucy coughed a little and he turned, and she ran and guzzled it. It was like drinking liquid fire.

The world _spun_ and she stumbled.

It felt like fire in her veins and everything seemed to vanish except her opponent.

She threw the gourd on the ground and broke it.

Bacchus thought he'd won for sure when she did that, because that particular tincture would knock a normal person out. When the pupils of her eyes turned red, he knew she'd used some power that allowed her to assimilate his magic. He knew the tide had suddenly turned against him and became very focused.

Lucy sent all of her spirits back and combined the Taurus Star Form with Gemini, which meant she had some of Bacchus' strength, Taurus', and whatever power she absorbed fighting him.

At the edge of the arena, Laxus was so incredibly amused with his student he could barely contain himself. Lucy was a creature of variables, and she had this bag of tricks. No one trick was enough to justify calling her strong, but when she combined her intelligence with her tools, she was a force to be reckoned with.

He never would have predicted she'd steal his booze and drink it. Never.

But there she was, drunk and looking crazy as hell with her red eyes, swinging blonde ponytail, and spiky headphones. The confidence she moved with was deadly.

Lucy blocked and kicked him so hard he went flying and then zipped and punched him in the stomach before he hit the ground. The brawl was serious, and it got bloody, because they were both strong and fast. He busted her lip, she knocked the wind out of him, he threw her into the wall, she got up and sent him flying fifteen in the air and then headbutted him on the way down.

Bacchus crashed to the ground, a sad little trickle of blood coming down his nose that made them match in a way. The match was called, and Lucy's heart was still racing.

The crowd was screaming so hard the stadium was shaking, and Lucy could feel it. She took her headphones off and offered him a hand only to collapse on the ground next to him.

Bacchus turned his head to face her. "That was _**wild**_."

"It kind of was," she admitted.

Bacchus sat up and looked down at her. "I'm glad."

"Glad?"

He said, "I have four sisters, and they're all young. I want to be able to tell them a girl can be pretty and smart and kick the living shit out of guys too."

Bacchus had less than no class in her eyes, so hearing this shifted her opinion a little bit.

"That's nice, I guess."

He smirked. "Hey, let me buy you dinner. We'll go out on the town, have some grub, we'll go back to my place and you can slap me around."

Lucy laughed and stood. "No, Bacchus. Just no."

The crowd was still screaming when she walked off and met Laxus.

"That was absolutely incredible."

The final score board for the day posted:

Fairy Fire – 28  
Fairy Thunder – 26  
Lamia Scale – 20  
Scarmiglione – 13  
Mermaid Heel – 12  
Sabertooth – 10  
Quatro Cerebus – 4  
Blue Pegasus – 1

Lucy cheered a little and then smiled at him and gave him back his headphones, "So we have a problem."

"Hmm?"

"I'm so drunk..."

She faltered and her Star Dress dropped along with her ability to borrow Bacchus' magic, which was necessary in order for her body to maintain with the sheer amount of booze in her. She stumbled, and held onto his arm, watching the world spin before her.

Lucy was instantly too drunk too walk, think, or do anything else except complain about being too drunk to walk, think, or do anything but complain.

"Honestly..." he sighed.

Laxus really didn't want her to be seen in this state after such an impressive victory. It would demean how ferociously crazy she'd been in the arena. So he threw her over one shoulder and went through some random door that said 'service' and entered the creepy pipe-laden underbelly of the arena, looking for a way out.

They sneaked out into an alley and Laxus considered how he'd get from the arena to their inn while dodging photographers, reporters, other wizards, and the general public and he decided to take lightning form. Since it took a ridiculous amount of energy to convert someone else's body into lightning and then carry it around with his own life force, this was always a last resort.

The only other time he'd done it, Freed had been impaled and needed medical attention post-haste.

When he got her to the inn, she barfed in a flowerpot near the front door for about five minutes while he held her ponytail and reflected on how hot he'd found her ten minutes before. Lucy Heartfilia, regardless of how she looked, was not a bad girl and certainly not a badass. She was a nice girl who couldn't hold her booze and made friends with most of the people she battled.

Lucy was also a fierce, terrifying opponent when she wanted to be.

"Most people wait until the games are over to start partying," he commented.

The blonde gave him a glare. "That's it. I'm going to kill you in my book. Noah Archer is going to die."

For some reason, this amused him. "How?"

"Testicular cancer."

"Now that's just mean. Let's get you inside before someone sees you."

Lucy managed to survive the initial wave of her body starting to metabolize whatever was in that gourd. "I'm okay, if you want to go."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded and he left.

As time passed, she started to feel a little less woozy and a little wired, and she waited in the common room for someone to come home, but she knew they'd probably be late. Lucy was about to get ready to go celebrate with Fairy Tail when the bell when she heard someone enter the little inn. Thinking one of her teammates had made it home, she found Bacchus standing in entry room.

He looked at her and smiled. "Hey."

"Bacchus..."

In the time that had elapsed, one of his eyes had turned black. "Hey, pretty girl. Came to make sure you were okay after drinking that stuff. It'll wear off in a couple of hours."

"I'm fine now, I think."

One of his hands was behind his back. "I also came to challenge you!"

The blonde furrowed her brows. "No th—"

He hurled a snowball at her and hit her squarely in the face. "...to a snowball fight!"

"Men are so childish!"

She chased him out, scooping up a pile of snow in one hand and hurling it at him.

They had a snowball fight in the park across the street from their inn that escalated quickly to creeping between trees, the use of magic, and she defeated him by shoving him into a snowman some children had built.

Somewhere in her mind, she knew she wasn't supposed to be doing what she was doing, but she couldn't think of a reason why. It was fun—he was fun. They were laughing and throwing snow that sometimes wasn't even in a ball. The effect of the magic booze started to wear off and she didn't stop.

Even when it was completely gone and she was sober, she still had fun, and when they started to reach a point of exhaustion she tripped trying to run through a wooded patch and he grabbed her hand and pulled her up.

Lucy hit his chest, and suddenly, her heart was pounding.

It was one of those magical moments like the ones she wrote about in her book; the ones that just didn't happen to her. But she always told herself that if she ever had a moment of true romance, she wouldn't fight it.

They would never be anything, and that was a guarantee.

"You mind if I kiss you, Pretty Girl?"

She shook her head once, and he kissed her.

And it was an _amazing_ kiss that left her weak in the knees.

Bacchus found it cute how she barely kissed him back and he kept it on the chaste side because he really wasn't trying to get her into bed. He'd really only wanted to throw a snowball at her and make sure she was okay, but somehow, all the rest had happened. "You want to go out tomorrow?"

Lucy shook her head. "We can't date, Bacchus. I'm nineteen. You're almost thirty and a playboy. You're really cool, and tonight was amazing, but I think we should just be friends."

"Fine, fine. Look me up if you want to have a wild time," he said.

She entered the inn and found everyone awake except Laxus.

There was a ruckus, but what Lucy discerned was that they'd gotten worried when they got home at midnight and she wasn't there and had spent the last two hours imagining all the crazy things that might have gone wrong.

"We were so worried. Did something happen?!" Gray asked.

"N-No. Sorry. I didn't mean to worry you."

Mirajane asked, "Where have you been? We know you weren't with Natsu's group, or at the bar, and you don't know anyone here."

Lucy wasn't sure why she felt like she needed to lie about it, but it just felt awkward to admit she'd run off with an older man she'd just battled. Running off with Bacchus was obviously a terrible idea to anyone who didn't know how incredibly fun he actually was.

"I just needed some fresh air. I wanted to see the city."

Laxus came in then, and was immediately treated to a lot of voices telling him something about a missing Lucy, and Lucy giving varied dodgy explanations for being missing for hours. Bacchus' scent was all over her, but she obviously didn't want anyone to know.

"She was with me. We were training."

His answer was short and final.

The others separated and went to their rooms, and Lucy waited for everyone to clear out, leaving her and Laxus.

Laxus smelled vaguely like a woman's perfume, and when she looked carefully, she noticed his shirt was inside out.

She didn't know why she felt both guilty and jealous.

Neither did he.

"Today was a good day. Let's go to bed," he finally said, deciding they really didn't have much business saying anything to one another, all things considered.

 _ **Please Review!**_

 _ **Special thanks to katekat2001, kurakieiritr JIO, Cheli016, Littlest1, W1n6s-0f-F1r3, Aviend, Flamey Owl, Yukino Scarlet, Mwolfe13, boyceashlee, Grimnack, SilverGhostKitsune, xxShyxx, theFangirlingFanboy, DarkFae7, Adabs18, EraticMind, aoutre, Paname, and for reviewing!**_


	7. Interlude: Jason's Article

**HERE COMES THE THUNDER**

Jason Pyle

I meet Laxus Dreyar at a cafe near the inn where Team Fairy Thunder is staying during these games. and sit with him in a dark booth at the corner of the dining room where he is enjoying a cup of black coffee in a state I can only describe as fashionably bored.

Standing at six and a half feet tall and well over two-hundred pounds, Laxus is a monster of a man. He's almost so big he looks like an adult trying to sit on furniture made for children, and he possesses a calm confidence that clashes with blue eyes that seem to threaten violence as they look around the room.

I notice right away he is _one of those—_ most of the strong leader-types are constantly aware of everything going on, so as I sit there and try to get my notes and my recorder in order, he's watching every movement, from the cute waitress trying to flirt up a good tip to the disgruntled manager who is complaining about her to another employee.

"You want coffee?" he asks.

I nod and he politely gestures to the waitress, who approaches our table and takes my order for a vanilla soy latte. His eyes narrow marginally as if to say, 'Real man take it black,' but he says nothing as he studies me.

Then I thank him for granting me an interview, and he makes some grunt of an acknowledgment while I try to decide which question to ask first.

Finally, I look up at him and ask how he selected his team.

Laxus takes a sip of his coffee before he answers, "In a team, it's not just important to have brute strength. How people work together is important. There are numerous factors that decide who wins a battle, but the Grand Magic Games isn't just about fighting; it requires strategy and utility."

Contrary to the other dragon slayers I've had an opportunity to interview, he's somewhat calm as he speaks, and seems to command both a larger vocabulary and a more complicated thought process. Then I remember that he's a little older than the others, and considerably more advanced in his career as a wizard.

"Who do you think is the strongest member of your team besides yourself?" I ask.

Tilting his head slightly, as if he had to consider it, Laxus answers, "Gray has mastered some new skills that are on a different level. Mirajane is as ferocious as ever. In terms of brute strength, I believe they are equal. Lucy and Juvia have powers that are dynamic. Lucy has a thousand tricks up her sleeve and a mind to orchestrate chaos with them. Juvia's strongest point is that she can combine her magic with nearly anyone's and produce a reaction that's exponentially more powerful."

When I asked him how he applies dynamics versus brute force, he explains, "Some opponents can't be crushed with brute force."

"Meaning?"

"Dynamics are necessary for the end game," he cryptically answers.

The next question I want to ask is potentially touchy, and I've been cautioned against it by my peers. This is my only opportunity to ask, and it's possible no one else will, so I try to give him a friendly smile before I ask and receive a glare in return.

I ask him about his team's uniforms, and he tenses slightly, but just for a second.

Laxus looks around the room again, seemingly annoyed with me, and the waitress brings my coffee. Dragon slayer nostrils twitch slightly at the scent, as if even the smell of it offends him, and he says, "Saying this will probably start a lot of [expletive], but my team is comprised entirely of elite wizards. Mirajane is a demon and should be the subject of nightmares, not wet dreams, although I'm sure the average reader of _Sorcerer Weekly_ would gladly lick the sludge from between her demon-clawed toes after she finishes stomping them into the ground. [ _There was a comment made after this, but the editors of this fine publication deemed it inappropriate not only for young readers, but all people everywhere._ ]"

I prickle a little at the insult to this publication and ask if he has a problem with it.

"Problem? That would imply I have two #$% to give about what you print. I only have one and that's why you're sitting here," he answers in a tone that is slightly menacing. "If I had two you'd be conducting this interview from the hospital."

I feel goosebumps and the hair on my arms raise as he stares me down and I see indignation flash in his eyes.

"Did you handle Minerva rough because of what happened in the x791 games?" I ask.

He shrugs and nods unapologetically, as if it's obvious.

"Why? Was it about Lucy personally?"

"No. There's such a thing as Fairy Karma. You hurt a fairy, and no matter what, you'll regret it someday," he nonchalantly answers.

This seems to be true, and even as someone who only reports on the guild, I recall numerous instances of so-called 'Fairy Karma' striking, usually with a vengeance. Laxus is a stalwart avenger, but their guild practically operates under the law of vigilantism. At the very heart of Fairy Tail is a sense of unity that has elevated them above the law, and if you ask any of the more prominent members, they'll openly admit that the laws of Fiore have nothing to do with them.

Perhaps that's a fair privilege this particular guild enjoys. Although the Magic Council in years passed waited vigilantly for an opportunity to disband the guild for wrongdoing, during that same span of time, Fairy Tail sprung into action to cover for the Council's basic inability to protect the citizens of this country repeatedly. In other words, while the Council who was charged with protecting us was busy trying to dismantle Fairy Tail, it was Fairy Tail that actually protected us.

Even today, if the apocalypse descended on us, the Council would likely still be twiddling its thumbs and debating whether a threat exists at the moment the man before me and his guildmates crush that threat. He'd probably be washing blood off his hands when they decide to have a vote about a vote about whether or not to do something that probably wouldn't help anyway.

With respect to that glaring truth, Fairy Tail _is_ the law. They are the gods of the high magic world, and among them, Laxus seems to sit at the top, perhaps in the position of the future guildmaster, but I know he won't answer any questions about that.

I'm so curious and I want to know so much, but I know Laxus isn't going to talk to me about the juicier topics. I try anyway, just in case he's feeling benevolent today although I feel like Laxus Dreyar probably hasn't felt benevolent for one day in his life.

"Can we talk about Alvarez?" I ask.

He shakes his head one time.

"Balam Alliance?"

"No."

"Raven Tail?"

"Absolutely not."

I know this would be the case. Fairy Tail members are notoriously tight-lipped about the things we'd all really like to know about them. Their guild carries secrets like none other, and wrapped in those secrets are truths that the rest of us aren't allowed to know.

Back in the day, we used to write about the nefarious dark magic cooperative known as the Balam alliance, which contained three terrifying guilds. Under the bikini spreads, real investigative journalism produced the idea that they were evil but they were faceless and terrifying. They were unstoppable villains and unknowable boogeymen.

As journalists, we want to _know_.

The man sitting before me knows everything. He knows their names, their faces, the clandestine events that occurred during Fairy Tail's campaign of wars. Some of them died at his hands, in fact. I happened to witness one of his more climactic moments with my own eyes, so as he stares at me, I compile my words carefully.

"I saw you kill Wahl Eto. In Hargeon," I finally say.

He blinks.

"Is that a question?" he impatiently asks.

"N-No," I stammer.

I look back at my notepad and reflect on how difficult of an interview Laxus Dreyar really is. There's something else I want to talk to him about, so I ask, "Can I ask you something off the record?"

"No, that would defeat the whole purpose of this interview."

I shrug; if he wants to be on the record, that's fine too.

"How's Lucy?"

The dragon slayer suddenly seems even more irritated with me. "Fine."

I dig in my pack for a photograph. "Last night paparazzo snapped this photograph."

I show him the photograph of Bacchus kissing Lucy at 2:13 am.

Laxus lifts his coffee mug again, and finding it empty, purses his lips together as he stares down at it. The next thing I know, the mug shatters in his hands and falls to the table in pieces.

"Do you want to comment on the record?"

His expression is positively malevolent, and he looks up at me and answers, "Lucy is a grown woman. What she does is her business, and as her team leader, I respect her decisions."

"You seem a little jealous," I press.

Laxus almost smiles as half of his lip turns up, but something about his eyes makes me want to either piss in my pants or crawl back into my mother's womb—maybe both, in fact. "You're mistaken," he insists, his voice flat and bored despite an expression Wahl Eto has probably seen.

Lucy Heartfilia is his student, so to imply jealousy carries some weight. Somehow, because she's something we have in common, we're stuck right there. Yet I know if I ask anymore questions about our mutual confidant, he seems like he'll end the interview. Or maybe my life...he's pretty pissed at this point.

Anxious to stick this interview properly, I seek a change of subject back to the topic he felt comfortable discussing. "What's your strategy for Gildarts Clive?"

"If I tell you how I intend to defeat him, he'll probably just read this article since it comes out tomorrow. And then what? That's a stupid [expletive] reason to lose," he matter-of-factly answers.

The waitress brings a bus pan and a towel and scrapes the broken pieces of the wizards mug off the table, and his head twitches as if the sound is briefly unbearable. Suddenly, the fact that we're in the darkest part of the cafe becomes relevant. He quietly apologizes and asks for another cup of black coffee.

"Are you hungover?"

"Miserably."

"Is that the reason you're in a bad mood?"

Puzzled, he considers this statement and answers, "I'm in an excellent mood today."

 _Yikes_.

I need something a little lighter, so I turn to the last page of my notebook. "How about a game of 'Who would you rather, wizard edition?'"

He shrugs. "Who would I rather fight or [expletive]? Actually, my answer is going to be the same, so it doesn't matter."

For some reason, this is possibly the most interesting thing I've learned about the dragon slayer so far.

"Minerva or Kagura?"

"Neither. I can't stand women who don't smile."

"Milliana or Yukino?"

"The cat girl is cute. Seems feisty."

"Mirajane or Erza?"

"They'll join forces and kill me no matter how I answer. It wouldn't be the worst way to go though, to be honest."

"Jenny Realight or Lucy Heartfilia?"

"Lucy is amazingly good looking, and she's a feisty little thing. She has a better body than Jenny."

The dragon slayer seems to be more or less finished answering my questions at that point, and while he sips his coffee in silence, he looks me over carefully.

"I have a question for you," he says.

"Eh?" I stupidly utter.

Laxus looks outside and asks, "Did it bother you?"

I'm confused now, and I don't understand what he means. Like other dragon slayers, he expects me to follow him through muddled thoughts and strange half-complete ideas. "Did what bother me?"

"Watching me kill Wahl."

I think for a minute; 'me' is not what I came here to talk about. I'm not sure why he wants to know, and honestly, I feel like I'm going to regret my answer.

I take a deep breath. "I felt relieved. In journalism, there's not supposed to be good guys or bad guys, just truth. But those guys were evil. That day had been chaos and everyone was disheartened. It felt like the end. I felt the tide start to turn. I wrote in an article that you paid for our future in your own blood," I admit, "But here we are talking about games."

Laxus rolls his eyes. "You're kind of heavy for an idiot that runs around talking about how cool stuff is."

"What do you like to do for fun then?"

"Fight and drink. That's coincidentally also what I do for a living, which is why I'm so good at it," he says, and I think he's joking, but it's hard to tell.

Laxus stands up and throes some jewels on the table, along with a generous tip for the waitress. It's almost time for the games to start, so he has to tend to his team, but before he leaves, he shakes my hand and tells me it didn't go as terrible as he'd expected. I ask him for a followup, and he tells me something my editors won't let me print and walks away.

I finish my coffee, and then go to the games and watch his team absolutely outperform the rest, including Fairy Fire. According to anyone's estimation, the other team should be on top, but Laxus has a certain something that possibly makes him unique. It's hard to describe, and it's rare, but he seems to possess the ability to bring potential out in those around him so I watch from the sidelines as he coaches his teammates.

First Gray Fullbuster sweeps the surprise event by turning it into a winter wonderland, and while he does that, I see the dragon slayer speaking to Juvia who crushes Hibiki Lates of Blue Pegasus. After that, Mirajane defeats Yukino of Sabertooth.

Fairy Thunder slides into first place over Fairy Fire, which comes in fourth in the surprise event and then falls further behind when Gajeel Redfox suffers the misfortune of drawing Jura Nekkis in his match.

At the end of the day, Laxus leads them to the top.

A curious mind wonders if this is the fate of Fairy Tail under his leadership. If so, the guild's legacy as the foremost magical power in Fiore seems to be secure for the foreseeable future.

Coooooooooool!

XXX

Lucy put the magazine down and stared blankly at Laxus, who was casually eating bacon on this, Day 3 of the Games. "Laxus..."

"Hm?" he asked.

"Is something wrong with you? Like, did your dad drop you on your head when you were a baby?"

"Probably," he answered, "I did say you were attractive."

Lucy drummed her fingers on the table. "Why did you break your coffee mug over some stupid picture?"

"I still have no idea, to be honest."

The pictures had been in the paper on Day Two, so Lucy already went through a cycle of horror and embarrassment, but now this article seemed like an extra round. It was bad enough that people already implied they had something going on, but now it really looked like they were involved.

The blonde showed him the newspaper. "In the gossip section of the paper, not only are we dating, but I am cheating on you with Bacchus. We have a love child, Laxus."

"Me and you? Or you and him?"

"Does that even matter?!"

Laxus really didn't care about any of the gossip at all. Since he grew up in a famous family and he had what most people referred to as poor moral values, all kinds of things had been printed about him. "According to media gossip, I have like twenty kids with different women, most of whom I've never slept with and I'm secretly in the closet with Gray, Hibiki, and Cobra. You wanted to be a stronger wizard. Welcome to the club. Enjoy the perks—it's easier to get laid, people will buy you drinks, and if your personal life is boring, they will make one up for you."

Lucy groaned. "This is not happening."

"You brought this on yourself when you let him kiss you."

She snatched the newspaper out of his hand. "Why do you seem angry at me about that?"

"If you wanted it that bad, you could have asked. You didn't have to let _him_ touch you."

"It wasn't about him, Laxus. We had a moment, and it happened, and it was over. It was amazing, and I'm not sorry. For all I know you slept with someone."

Laxus pushed his plate away. "I did."

"We hurt each other. So let's sit down and talk tonight after the games. Maybe we need to separate after the games or something."

"That might be best."

 _ **Please Review!**_

Special thanks to leenadavinci, Flamey Owl, shield agent hummingbird, aryillia, kurakieirtr JIO, Paname, aoutre, thefangirlingfanboy, aviend, grimnack, w1n6s-0f-f1r3, princekurama, katieboom, yukino scarlet, thebayman, cosm0333, katiekat2001, thornado, silverghostkitsune, adabs18, tarafredritz1, littlest1, tina, mwolfe13, boyceashlee, and lucy heart kim for reviewing!


	8. Lucy Zap!

That day started off with Lucy threatening to separate herself from him, and his agreement. The dragon slayer felt like the only thing they'd agreed on was the fact that they were both really bad liars. Lucy could bluff like the baddest bitch in the world when she wanted to, but lying to him? It was as absurd and as unbelievable as him lying to her.

He had the 'Surprise' event for the day, and Lucy and Gray both had duels, so it really wasn't a time to be thinking about anything other than winning.

But as he made his way down to the arena floor, he caught one last glimpse of her.

He hadn't meant to hurt her, sleeping with that woman.

Before Lucy came along, he had a type: tall, brunette, green-eyed...he didn't mind if they were stupid as long as they didn't talk too much. He satisfied his need when he got sexually frustrated, and then he went on with his life. He preferred them older, because older women knew the rules of a one-nighter.

That woman had been perfectly his type, and she'd been perfectly wrong.

Her hair color was wrong, her eyes were too sexy and too green, her body was too soft, and she was far too tall. He'd asked her a question when it was over, and found her conversation skills to be roughly on par with some random cricket making weird noises at him on an equally random sidewalk.

Laxus had never been so unsatisfied by sex in his life. It felt immoral and dishonest, and all that with someone who was nothing—absolutely nothing—compared to Lucy Heartfilia.

When he came home that night, she'd been kissing Bacchus.

Suddenly it was time for the event to start, and the competitors gathered in the arena while Mato welcomed everyone. From his periphery, Laxus identified and ranked his competitors: Minerva, Elfman, Lyon, Bacchus...Bacchus...Bacchus..." his thought process was interrupted momentarily, but he calmed himself down.

Bacchus, perhaps under the impression that a rattled Laxus would be more easily defeated, approached him and rested an elbow on his shoulder like they were good friends. "How's it going, Laxus?"

Or, maybe he was just mad that Lucy had rejected him. Bacchus strongly suspected he'd just been a ploy to make Laxus jealous, and although Lucy never _intended_ for any of that to happen, he had a mind to wreak havoc. Bacchus really liked her, and given the chance, he might have given everything up to have Lucy. Instead, he was just a side note; he was the fool.

And if he was going to play that role, he was going to play it all the way.

Up in the stands, Lucy watched him make his way to Laxus, and her first response was to groan. Bacchus was a trash-talker, and she felt a stab of guilt that her actions had brought a very public vulnerability to light, but Laxus seemed perfectly composed.

Bacchus turned, still leaning on him, and looked up at her. "I heard you have it bad for her."

Laxus gave no answer and continued to stare straight ahead. Not giving a shit was his specialty, after all.

Mato finally gestured and a giant bluish, hollow bubble descended from above. It had different little earthen clumps floating here and there. "Today's surprise game: Forcefield. There's a powerful forcefield surrounding the battle area. You must physically push opponents through the forcefield in order to eliminate them. The forcefield will shrink and become more powerful as the contest continues."

Right before the games started, Bacchus, annoyed he had received no response at all, leaned in and whispered, "I think I was the first one to kiss those pretty little lips. Poor girl was just waiting for a real man to come along and kiss her."

 _Game face. Game face. Game face. Game face..._

"Her lips were real sweet."

Laxus continued staring straight ahead.

"Maybe I'll come around for a second taste. Who knows where she'll let me put my mouth next time. I bet she tastes good everywhere."

Bacchus couldn't tell if Laxus was really bluffing about being calm or if he actually didn't care. "I guess it's fine if you don't have anything to say."

They were transported to opposite sides of Forcefield and the gong sounded.

It was Bacchus that leapt at him, but Laxus met him mid-air and hit him so hard and with such an enormous blast of lightning that the extremely unexpected aftershock threw _everyone_ out instantly. Bacchus went through the forcefield, then through the floor of the arena, then through the floor of the basement, then through the sewer, and finally landed some dark cave far below.

Forcefield was supposed to last thirty minutes.

The bubble was empty in four seconds.

Laxus dropped into the crater he'd made with Bacchus and looked down at him. The dragon slayer had punched him squarely in the mouth, splitting his top lip up to his nose, and his bottom lip halfway down his chin. Lightning singed them, and Bacchus sat up just enough to bring his fingers up to his mouth.

The dragon slayer coolly asked, "Did you hear that or do I need to repeat myself?"

Laxus thought Bacchus told him to 'fuck off' but how easy was it to make words without proper lip usage?

Then he left Bacchus there and returned to the surface to accept his victory along with complaints that he'd broken the game. Technically, in slow motion, they all left the bubble at different times, so they were ranked accordingly. Elfman came in second because he weighed the most and got thrown out last. Bacchus was obviously in last place as he was already in the basement and on his way into the pits of hell when the others were tossed out. Laxus left of his own accord last so that he could _communicate_ with Bacchus.

Up in the stands, the team watched all this unfold with a little horror. Everyone who read the gossip column knew something bad was going to happen with both of them in the same competition, but when Bacchus assumed the role of joker, his fate was etched into stone. What no one expected was that he would hit Bacchus so hard that it would hurt everyone else too.

The officials had to pause the games to fix the arena, and Lucy sighed at the damage.

Mirajane leaned against the rail. "Laxus in love: ugly, mean, and scary. It fits him somehow."

"Really not in love," Lucy grumbled.

Juvia looked down. "He dealt with a love rival."

Lucy wasn't amused at all, but that wasn't to say she wasn't affected.

Since she was fighting in the first round, she went down to the arena and watched wizards apply a temporary fix to the arena floor from the tunnel.

She sensed him behind her.

"Laxus?"

"Are you ready to fight?"

The blonde nodded.

"Are you angry?"

Lucy shrugged. "I don't even know. I brought all this on myself. The tabloid gossip, the strife, the humiliation, all of it. I just wanted to know what it was like to be kissed by someone who found me cute," she sadly answered.

He lifted her chin with two of his fingers. "Don't get into that kind of mood before you fight. Don't regret yourself. You did what you wanted to do."

"I feel like a stupid little girl," she confessed, "Causing men to fight over me. Making someone I care about jealous."

Laxus leaned down and grinned at her. "Bacchus brought all that on his own head. I might have left him alone if he'd done the same."

The blonde asked, "What did he say to you, anyway?"

"Something about...what's the polite word? I forget." He considered it for a minute, because he just absolutely could not utter the words 'eating pussy' to her. She might slap him. She might scream. She might pass out. She might do all three, in that exact order. "Cunnilingus. I think that's it."

Lucy felt her cheeks burn. "He didn't...how embarrassing..."

"Not really an appropriate comment to make about a virgin."

"Do you think he knows I am?"

He gave her an incredulous glance and tried to find a way to explain how men think and operate. "When an explorer first sees an island and it looks like it might be a good place to visit, he looks for signs that others have been there. What kind, how many. The more people have been on the island, the less interesting it is. What interest does an explorer have in an island that's already had twenty different explorers on it? Putting their hands on things and exploring and knowing things...no matter what the explorer does, someone else has done it before him. Maybe better, maybe worse. Islands are still interesting, so it's not terrible to visit. He enjoys what the island has to offer and leaves.

"But what he prefers is an island where no man has ever stepped foot. Everything is new, and it is his to find, to touch, to have. He's eager to stick his flag in and claim it as his. Basically, every man who has ever thought you might be interesting has assessed you and determined you are a virgin."

Lucy stared at him blankly for a long time. "Laxus."

"Yes."

The blonde shook her head at him. "Men are sad little creatures, aren't they?"

He smirked at her. "Maybe so. It makes you sad for wanting one to kiss you, doesn't it?"

They were smiling at one another, and he was leaning over her. Was this flirting? Lucy wasn't sure. He really didn't know either. He might have been more experienced with touching women, but not knowing them. The tension between them wasn't acrimonious like their conversation at breakfast had been, and he was pleased she hadn't lost her temper over his behavior toward Bacchus.

Laxus leaned in a little closer, and Lucy looked down the tunnel both ways to make sure they couldn't be seen.

"What are you nervous about?" he asked.

Lucy pushed him away. "Okay, I fight to fight in the first around, so at some point in the next hour, I have to throw down and you're distracting me. God, you're a distraction!"

This was an ironic word to hear because in the beginning, Laxus had agreed to help her because he was in a somewhat boring slump in his life and he needed _a distraction_. The blonde ended up being about a thousand times more of a distraction than he'd estimated she'd be, and to make matters worse, she was slowly destroying his whole world and rebuilding it into something else.

Laxus looked down at her and realized this sneaky little devil had completely destroyed what he thought and felt about women slowly and probably completely unintentionally. The things that used to be irresistibly attractive to him had become unappealing. He watched her struggles, and he respected her. She confided in him, and he listened. Lucy was now his type—not girls that looked like her. Only her.

The blonde tried desperately hard to clear her mind, but he really was just a big, muscly distraction that demanded her attention. He had always been like that; he was disruptive, rude, and demanding. He was like that asshole character in a book that was popular with everyone even though he had no manners. He was an archetype: good character, bad personality. The anti-hero.

Laxus put his hands on her hips.

"DISTRACTION!" she screeched.

He pulled her against him. "You want to be kissed by a someone who finds you cute?"

Lucy exclaimed, "Laxus, you don't even like kissing. You probably just want to do it because Bacchus already claimed the territory, but really, this is literally _**the worst possible moment**_! Honestly, Laxus, I don't think you even like me like that. Or how you feel about me at all. Or if you have feelings at all."

Laxus decided to give up and come back to this subject after her duel. He really didn't know his own feelings very well, and suspected she didn't either. Just because she expressed a wide range of emotions didn't mean she understood them, and he'd learned that early on with her.

Lucy really just didn't want anything to happen until she had an understanding of his feelings. She wasn't down with a casual sex relationship, and he'd told her early on that was as far as he went. If that was the case, there was no reason for anything to happen at all.

They were interrupted when the match was called:

" _ **The first duel of the day will be between Fairy Thunder Lucy Heartfilia and Fairy Fire Gajeel Redfox!"**_

Laxus immediately recalled when she'd confided in him about the beating, and he looked down to find she was afraid. "Shit."

Lucy covered her mouth and looked down despondently. "Oh no...of all the people...I can't..."

Every facet of the fight was ugly:

First, Lucy had some emotional issues tied to Gajeel. Specifically, tied to him hitting and kicking her, and there was no telling what might happen when he did this during the match. Laxus believed there was a chance she'd break down into tears, or have a flashback. For her to end up sobbing or terrified in the middle of the arena would be terrible for her.

He was the one that made her feel so powerless.

And second—and this was the real problem—Lucy couldn't beat Gajeel.

Neither of them believed she could, but neither acknowledge this fact.

A dragon slayer was a different kind of opponent, and it took so much to bring one down that the only ones who could usually do it were other dragon slayers.

"Lucy, if you and Gajeel don't fight and let the match time run down, it'll be a draw and you'll both get five points. He'll do it if you ask," he said.

Lucy shook her head. "I don't expect you to understand, but I can't do that. I can't tell him I don't want to fight him because he beat me. That's like asking him to give up points because I'm a weakling. He'll make me tell him why. I won't! This is my fight, Laxus."

Her eyes filled with tears, and she quickly wiped them away. The sad truth was that she was about to get pulverized by Gajeel and that all her training didn't change anything. If he wanted to break all her ribs, he could. Thankfully, he was at least her guild mate this time.

Laxus leaned down and rested his forehead on hers. "I need you for the last day of the games, so don't get hurt too much."

"Can I borrow your headphones?"

Laxus put them on her ears and activated them.

Lucy joined Gajeel on the arena floor, and Laxus waited just on the edge.

Laxus saw her legs shake, and stand there with her knees buckled like she'd done when they'd first started training. Her stance was wrong, and she didn't seem to be putting together a plan of any sort.

And Gajeel? His only real sin was not considering the gravity of their past together.

The first blow sent her flying, and onto her butt.

She didn't cry, but she wasn't really trying outside of getting up.

Gajeel was actually not being rough with her at all, probably because there was no reason for it.

Lucy went down again, and she remembered Laxus' voice in training telling her that her opponents were going to hurt her, sometimes grievously. She remember it well; the pain of a broken bone, and his demand that she not only stand up, but that she attack.

She woke up and reached for her keys, stringing together some combination of things into a plan.

When she seemed to get serious, he did too, covering himself in metal scales.

Lucy stared intently at him, a fight growing in her eyes. How many times had they had no chance? She could name a dozen times there was no hope, but they'd made it through. She decided she was going to make it through too, and even if she couldn't beat Gajeel, he wasn't going to let her have his way with her again. There was something empowering about the idea of losing, but giving it her all. At least, she told herself that, but at the core of everything, she was afraid to lose to him again.

If she couldn't take him down, maybe she could stay on her feet for all fifteen minutes and the match would be a draw.

"Aries! Virgo!"

The ram spirit timidly stood next to her and looked all around the stadium. She felt _shy_ in front of all these people, but she heard her master's call and she knew what to do.

"Wool bomb!"

Pink, bouncy fluff filled most of the stadium floor and while Gajeel looked at it in question, Lucy came flying through the air and kicked him in the skull. It wasn't really a powerful kick since she wasn't using Star Dress, but it caught him off guard because she'd been a little helpless up to that point.

Hadn't she called two spirits?

Gajeel landed on the fluffy wool, and Aries bounced and rolled him around on it. "H-Hey, Bunny Girl! You wouldn't..."

Nausea coursed through him and his stomach churned as he tried to get off the wool. It seemed to be everywhere, and it followed him. Gajeel got frustrated quickly and destroyed it and fell through one of sixteen holes Virgo had made in the newly-repaired floor of the arena while Aries bounced him.

Lucy sent all of her spirits home and donned Sagittarius and Leo star forms, charging up an arrow as she waited for him to come up.

Laxus smiled a little from the sidelines. He doubted this strategy would help her win, but she was controlling what was happening, and that was something. He'd been afraid that she'd feel helpless and defenseless and might snap completely, but she'd summoned her strength and at this moment, she was being Lucy.

Gajeel came sailing out of one of the holes, very confused by what she was doing, and was hit in the stomach with an arrow that bounced off and exploded on the ground.

She was disappointed, because she hoped maybe with that much magic, she might be able to get past his scales, but she hadn't even put a dent in him.

Gajeel looked over at her. "Honestly, Lucy, you're being stubborn. Don't make me get serious."

She couldn't hear him over the sound of electric guitars in her ears. Laxus' taste in music was honestly deplorable, but it was good for drowning out sounds.

Lucy switched to Taurus and Leo Star Dress, her normal beat-em-up combo and moved in, wondering if maybe the Regulus magic might be able to break his scales if she hit him enough times. So she picked a spot on his left side and as the fight turned into a brawl, she would block his attack, absorb his magic using her kinetics magic, and them strike just as hard at his side.

Laxus watched this with interest, because the whole reason he'd given her the book was because she couldn't stay in battle with her body unable to buffet attacks. As expected, being able to absorb blows to her body was allowing her to stay in the game even with Gajeel, although she wasn't doing anything that remotely resembled winning. She was _standing_ , and when the match was half over, he felt a sense of pride.

Gajeel had a terrible disadvantage because there were holes everywhere, and while Lucy had extensive agility and awareness, Gajeel had the advantage of being so strong he didn't always pay attention to where his feet were and he kept falling in the holes.

Still, she simply couldn't hurt him, and she was picking up bruises and abrasions on her arms from blocking him and he assumed she probably had some injuries from attacking a man made from metal.

And then, it all went to hell.

Gajeel kicked her in the place where her ribs had been broken and she screamed and held her side. He used a little more magic than was necessary, but Fairy Fire was nine points behind and he could put them at the top of the scoreboard if he won.

Lucy fisted her hands in the dirt, and in an instant, she wasn't there anymore. She was in Phantom Lord's monster headquarters getting the living shit beaten out of her by Gajeel while other wizards in Phantom Lord told him she'd die if he kept doing it. She blinked, and she was still there, and she felt like she was supposed to be somewhere else, but she couldn't snap back to reality.

The memory of the pain hurt her far more than that one kick did and her eyes snapped open and all she could see was the ground.

The whole purpose of everything she had endured was that she wouldn't feel hopeless or weak anymore.

Yet, there Lucy Heartfilia was: on her face, beaten up, and after all she'd done, she had nothing to show for it. She was bleeding. He had not even a single scratch.

Lucy felt bitter, and angry, and desperate in part because he'd hurt her so badly she'd spent years crying about it, and in part because he didn't seem to be bothered at all. In some rational part of her mind, she knew this was because he didn't know how severely he'd injured her, but in the irrational part, he was a villain and a monster in that moment and not her guild mate at all.

A man beating a woman senselessly and to the point he had done caused wounds a lot deeper than guilds or friendships or anything else.

She would have done anything to beat him. Anything.

Lucy stood to her feet again, hand on her side.

Mentally, she sorted through all the cards she had in her hand. He'd never let her have the time to cast Urano Metria. None of her spirits could break his iron scales, and she couldn't using any of them in Star Form to do it.

She considered the Gemini key, but that one was a little scary. Every time she used it, something bad happened. Usually, she'd be left with side-effects, and they were heavy considering that the transformation only lasted five minutes. Then, she could really only use it to borrow someone else's magic who was at or below her level. That meant it was good for getting different magic skills, but she couldn't use it to get on someone else's level. An attempt to use it to copy Natsu had caused the magic to backfire and burn her pretty badly back when she'd first tried. There was always a chance it would ricochet and hurt her if she couldn't control it, and even if she successfully managed, she wasn't as powerful as the original caster.

So copying Gajeel would benefit her nothing. Because he was more powerful than she was, it was likely the spell would hurt her anyway and the spell would fail.

The stands were full of wizards, and on sight, she could partially maybe copy someone, but of the people she judged at her level, she couldn't think of anyone who could help her win. She was out of ideas, and it hurt in a way she couldn't explain.

Defeat had never tasted so bitter.

Lucy could taste her blood, and looked at her hands and feet. Her hands had cuts and scrapes and bruises everywhere, and her shoes were torn up and bleeding from kicking him. All this, and he remained fine, just like she still cried and he probably barely remembered.

Her heart started to thump and she entered the realm of irrational and crazy.

She didn't care if the magic backfired and hurt her...as long as she could hurt him a little bit, she'd pay the costs.

Lucy let him bang her around a little so her magic container filled up—which cost her a wound that might require stitches—and then used Gemini Star Dress and nothing else.

As soon as she tried, she knew she wasn't supposed to be trying to do what she was going to do. If her own conscience wasn't enough, she knew it was going to be a disaster when Loke showed up on his own power.

"Lucy, stop! You're crazy! You'll get hurt and it won't work! Even if you can, you can't control that!"

It hurt...everything hurt.

Lucy narrowly dodged Gajeel and felt blood ooze from her nose.

Laxus had _no_ idea what was going on, but she was expending a sick amount of magic while Loke begged her to stop, and then he saw blood pour out of her nose and knew whatever was happening needed to stop. In the end, it might have been her determination and her pain, but everything that was going on was just a game.

And then, he felt the first spark as lightning wrapped around her.

Lucy looked up, and Gajeel's eyes widened. Her eyes were a familiar shade of gray blue, she had lightning crackling all around her, and there was a familiar mark over her right eye.

Laxus mouth gaped open.

The blonde panicked when it worked, because even if she could start it, she had no knowledge or training to control power like his. But, she was able to connect because she knew him well, she was someone he touched often, and she knew how his power worked and how it felt—he'd probably shocked her a thousand times in training.

The deadly part was controlling the magic. In other instances, when she copied someone else's magic, she almost had to wrestle their will in order to use it. But the lightning did her absolutely no harm as it cracked and sizzled around her, and she knew it wasn't because it was weak.

The lightning wrapped around her protectively, surged through her body, and pooled in her hands, as if it had a will to help her. Instead of fighting her, she felt it strengthen her and replenish her. It twisted and tangled with her own magic until it didn't feel like two different magics anymore. In some weird kind of way, it made her blush to feel his power inside of her.

And she remembered something her mother said about how all truly powerful magic comes from the heart. This was Laxus' heart and Laxus' power and these things she felt were all the things he didn't know how to say to her.

Gajeel came forward to test this calamitous thing he'd just witnessed. She blocked, lightning exploded when he made contact with her arm and his scales shattered and went flying.

Lucy went at him with a vengeance and even though she didn't know how to use any of his more powerful skills, every time she struck him, his scales went broke and for the last three minutes, the fight was almost even.

The copy was very incomplete, but Gajeel didn't know that, so when he started to use his breath attack, she took a deep breath like she was going to fry him with Laxus' breath attack, and he changed his mind. It was a terrifying bluff, but it worked.

The match ended, and they were both still standing, resulting in a draw.

Lucy didn't even wait for anyone to stop cheering and went straight for Laxus as the floor of the arena caved in again, thanks to Fairy Thunder.

She grabbed him by the wrist and pulled them far enough down the tunnel they couldn't be seen from the outside.

Laxus bent down to eye level and stared at her in fascination as he pulled the headphones off of her. His eyes, his mark, his magic... He was extremely surprised, but he assumed she'd probably been able to pull it off because they knew each other well. She wasn't powerful enough to control his magic, but his magic was _his_ , so it hadn't hurt her. It might have killed her if they were strangers, but she probably knew that too.

"Are you mad?" she asked.

Laxus grinned a little. "I am...wildly amused, ridiculously impressed, and incredibly turned on. I don't have any room to be pissed. How long will it last?"

"About one more minute. The spell only lasts five minutes."

He nodded. "I don't think I'd use Gemini in a real battle since you seem to be useless after it wears off and it lasts such a short period of time. In a real battle, it would wear off, and you'd be screwed."

"It's not as useful as you think even before it does. If we were fighting a dragon slayer in the real world, I wouldn't need to copy you because you'd actually be there. I can't copy anyone I haven't touched recently."

Laxus added, "Five minutes though? I could make that work. Doubt it would work for you."

Lucy was completely confused and missed the meaning of this comment entirely. "Wait...did I just...Gajeel didn't beat me?!"

Laxus said, "Gajeel will probably make an excuse, but it's really no different than takeover magic."

"Please. Dragon slayers are the ultimate copy cats. I copied a copy."

Laxus steadied her when the transformation dropped. "You just called me a copy?"

"You're not really a dragon, are you?"

"Let a man dream."

 _Relieved_...Lucy was so relieved. Her life had been terrifying and scary for fifteen minutes, but it was over and she was okay. She was grateful to him for his support and for his magic.

Lucy's stomach growled loudly and she looked down. "What the..?"

"Dragon slayers suffer from voracious hunger after they fight. You'll get hysterically cranky if you don't eat, so you should probably take care of that."

"You fought today too!"

"For four seconds. Go to the medic and get cleaned up first. You're turning into one of us, forgetting you're fucked up after you fight."

Lucy had been so happy she hadn't lost she hadn't paid attention to her wounds. There was one that might have needed stitches, but lightning had singed it closed, so she hit the shower, put some disinfectant on her scrapes, and went to a nearby cafe.

Suddenly, she understood Natsu's messy, bizarre post-battle eating binges and tried her best to _politely_ eat four entire meals. She wondered if Laxus did this, but she'd never seen him. The idea was hilarious to her.

Back at the arena, Laxus joined the rest of his team while they watched the rest of the first round of matches. He was really glad that Lucy hadn't lost, because he felt like if she had, it would have been a big setback for her emotionally. He'd never cared for anyone's emotions before to the extent of being worried about them, but he knew her well enough to know it was an important moment for her.

His grandfather appeared at his feet and gestured, and Laxus followed him into the broad hallway. The only movement in the middle of a match was people going to and from the restroom, so they found a spot that was a little empty.

Makarov watched his grandson cross his arms and lean against the wall, bracing himself for a lecture. "Laxus."

"Gramps."

"Laxus, the first two events of the games were dictated _entirely_ by the drama steadily churning between you and Lucy."

He decided to play innocent, because it pissed Makarov off more. "What are you talking about?"

Makarov answered, "Play that game all you want, but if you treat this like a game, you'll lose in the end. Lucy is a special girl, and I'm glad that you took her under your wing. She's benefited so much from you. But you've benefited too. She's a good girl, Laxus. Young, beautiful, and kind. She can put up with your shit."

"This conversation has been coming for a while? That's your best speech? I'm not moved."

His grandfather looked up at him, and he stared back down without flinching.

Makarov couldn't stand Laxus to act like that: cold, composed, and so chill, as if he had everything under control. He'd seemed like that before Forcefield started, and then four seconds later, thousands of people knew he had a girl problem. "She's the chink in your armor, isn't she?"

Laxus didn't even acknowledge the comment.

"You frigid idiot..."

"Hn."

Makarov and Laxus stared at each other for a long time.

A pregnant woman walked passed them on the way to the bathroom, and Laxus was briefly distracted by the peculiar way she waddled.

Makarov threw a rock at the chink in his armor. "You and Lucy would have some cute babies."

Laxus had so much game face he didn't even flinch. "You've overused the babies thing. Not really planning on having any."

"Plans change. You have a lot of growing to do, but you can only go so far by yourself."

Makarov left him with that thought, and Laxus went back to the games.

Lucy joined them after a while, and they cheered through the second round, where Natsu squashed Rogue and Gray defeated some poor trash-talking fool from Scarmiglione.

The partied as a guild, and and went back to their inn at one in the morning.

At three am, Lucy and Laxus met in the hot tub again.

He had a beer, as was normal, and she winced as the hot water touched some of her scrapes.

They were quiet for a long time. This conversation was important and it was long overdue, and they both grasped at all the words they knew, trying to find a combination of words that would be the 'right' thing to say.

Laxus took a sip from his beer and put the bottle down at the edge. "So I'm hatefully, violently jealous about the idea of any other man touching you. Half of Fiore knows this, so I might as well acknowledge it."

Lucy didn't raise her protest about how she felt about him having sex. Wisdom said it wouldn't be good for the conversation to become a tit-for-tat. Instead, she followed his logic, because she still felt confused as well. "So what's the plan? Am I supposed to just stay a virgin forever and never let anyone touch me ever so you won't kill them?"

He eyes narrowed slightly. "Do you think that's the plan? That I would keep you a virgin forever?"

"I don't know what your plan is," she admitted.

Laxus chuckled darkly. "That's certainly not it. Come here, Lucy."

Maybe it was the spark in his eyes or the low, rough voice he used to call her, but she felt electricity course down her spine and it hadn't come from him. She was going to sit beside him but he pulled her onto his lap instead.

"Eep!"

Laxus laughed, but he didn't let her go. "You're so cute. I'm trying to seduce you and you're sitting in my lap squeaking like a cute little church mouse that got caught by a tomcat."

"I'm sorry. How should a react? I don't know."

"I think that depends on whether or not you want to be seduced. You have options. If you don't want this, you could get up and leave, or yell at me, or slap me...actually, the slap thing can go either way. And if you do, you can settle down and relax, because I promise I don't bite," he answered.

Lucy opted for the latter, trying to force her body to relax, but said, "Are you lying about the biting thing? Because you look like a biter. You look like you want to bite me right now, actually."

His response to this was to grab her ear lobe between his teeth and pull on it with a smirk.

It tickled more than anything, and she giggled. "S-Stop it! You just said you don't bite!"

"Men are liars. Well-known fact."

When he let go of his ear, Lucy put a hand on his face and he leaned into it a little. "I don't want to be friends with benefits. I know you said that's your limit. I want to have a real boyfriend. If that's all, then...I can't do this."

"It's not like that."

"Are you sure?"

"I tried to punch a man into the center of the earth because he kissed you. Friends with benefits don't care about that," he explained.

Lucy thought back to how his magic felt, about how it wrapped around her almost in an embrace. Now here was was, in his arms for real. She'd felt him in that moment, and even if he wasn't good at talking about his feelings, he had strong feelings for her.

"You want us to be like...boyfriend and girlfriend?"

"Like... _ **obviously**_ ," he answered.

"Okay. I'll be your girl."

Laxus felt like he'd just won some huge victory as she sat there on his lap grinning at him.

And then, Lucy reached up to his hair and ran her hands through it. "Do you mind? I mean, I'm your girlfriend, after all. I've wanted to do this literally forever."

"Go ahead."

He had a little gel in it because he didn't want to get photographed looking too crazy.

"I like it. It's so thick and hard. I love the way it feels in my hands."

And then, she was confused as he brought a palm to his face and his chest jerked as he fought the urge to laugh.

"Why are you laughing?"

Laxus shook his head. "No reason."

"I _love_ your hair."

"Take yours down already."

Lucy pulled the ponytail holder out of her hair and it fell down her back into the water.

When she finished with his hair, she rested her head on his shoulder. "It's nice, being like this with you. Are you sure you hate kissing?"

Laxus brought his lips down on hers with so much enthusiasm that she became stiff as a board for about ten seconds, and then tightened her hold of him. It was so incredible that she couldn't even think, and she couldn't breathe, and neither of these facts bothered her.

Bacchus had given her a sweet little kiss, but Laxus was aggressive and full of need when he kissed her.

The dragon slayer's kiss became more affectionate and soft right before he broke the kiss.

Both of them were breathing hard, and they were holding each other so tightly.

"Maybe I just only like to kiss you, but you, you like to kiss Bacchus too."

Lucy asked, "Bacchus who?"

"That's my girl."

Lucy rested her forehead against his. "When I had your magic, I felt your heart, Laxus. Your feelings toward me are beautiful."

Laxus really didn't know how to answer this. "You've been my girlfriend for three minutes. Is it too soon to ask how far you'd let me get?"

"How far what?"

"Nevermind. I'm up to no good, so lets go to bed before I piss you off. Because that's what's going to happen here."

 _ **Please Review!**_

 _ **Special thanks to Katieboom, flamey owl, Thornado, boyceashlee, Littlest1, w1n6s-0f-f1r3, adabs18, katekat2001, tina, 12rayne, paname, mwolfe13, silverghostkitsune, and princekurama for reviewing!**_


	9. Lucy Brat!

This was Lucy's last event before the final day.

She looked up at the scoreboard and saw her team was still at the top. Somehow, they'd been up there for a while, although she knew part of it had to do with the fact that they'd been ridiculously lucky when it came to the duel matches and they'd done well in the surprise events, finishing first in two out of the three.

Now it was her turn, and she didn't look at any of her competitors.

Mato held the microphone in hand.

"Today's surprise event is...Broken! Hopefully Fairy Tail won't blow the stadium up and break the game, but I have no hope!" he enthusiastically said.

Gildarts, who was competing from Fairy Fire, looked down at her as he stood beside her and whispered, "I couldn't believe you tore up the arena yesterday too. I think you've been spending a little too much time with...you know who."

"My boyfriend?"

"It's official?!"

Gildarts turned and gave Laxus a thumbs up in the stands and Laxus gave him a sturdy middle finger and a smirk. "Aww...ain't he lovable? I ship it."

"You read too many magazines."

Mato said, "The rules of the game are simple. Carry your emblem to the top without breaking it."

A big, rocky mountain descended from above, and little glass copies of their guild emblems floated down. The glass was almost unbelievably thin and the challenge was to fight and climb up without causing it to break.

Rogue was on the mountain, and Lucy knew he was coming for her. Lucy didn't have a lot of faith in her ability to get to the top. This was really Rogue's game, and that annoyed her.

Gildarts said, "So the goal is for this piece of glass to make it to the top?"

"Basically."

Up in the stands, Natsu groaned. Of all the people, did Gildarts have to get the event where the goal was to _not_ break something fragile? Breaking things was a Fairy Tail special, but Gildarts was the most special at it. The man accidentally destroyed houses without realizing it, so Natsu knew their team was pretty much screwed.

Lucy donned her Capricorn Star Dress and started to climb carefully up the mountain, holding the emblem in one hand as she climbed with the other. Gildarts was next to her climbing, roughly at the same rate, and then above them: Milliana, who came for Lucy.

Gildarts threw his emblem in the air and sent a shock wave of crash magic upward into her, and then fumbled to catch it again.

Lucy grasped it gently and gave it back to him. "Thanks, Gildarts! Saved my skin!"

"Saved mine too."

They pulled themselves up onto a ledge and before Lucy even sensed him, Gildarts' hand disappeared into a black shadow and he pulled Rogue out of it by the hair and threw him down. "All these guys are gunning for you. You represent the team at the top. I'm second from the top, but no one seems to want to bother me for some reason. We're both Fairy Tail. I'm not gonna let anyone finish before us. They can clamor for third."

Lucy nodded. "Sounds like a good plan. I'm at a nasty disadvantage here."

"Besides, this whole game feels like a commentary on how we destroy everything. So let's win _and_ break it," he answered.

She laughed. "Gildarts, that's kind of mean!"

Gildarts said, "Laxus gave you that book of Precht's, didn't he? That's the magic you've been using. Kinetics."

The blonde deadpanned. "Of _**who**_?"

"He didn't tell you we were sent to retrieve that book? Makarov told us to go get it years ago. Precht wrote it," he answered.

"Precht...as in... _ **Master Hades**_. Laxus gave me magic developed by Master Hades. That guy, the one that...and then...and then...that guy!" she exclaimed.

Gildarts was amused by this. "Looks like we know what your first fight is going to be about."

"He's dead, Gildarts!"

The older mage sent another shockwave up the mountain. "Young love! A man's greatest adventure."

"It's going to be a short one," she hissed.

"If it makes you feel any better, Precht wrote the book before he lost his mind."

Laxus watched from the stands as Lucy and Gildarts stopped moving up the mountain and were evidently having a deep conversation _in the middle of the game_. Whatever he told her left her livid and she gave him one glare that sent chills down his spine. Gildarts knew most of the skeletons in his closet by name, so he wondered what the older mage was telling Lucy and why it couldn't wait until after the game was over.

Elsewhere, everyone else was progressively climbing upward.

Gildarts smirked. "So I can't use my magic and hold that thing at the same time. My magic doesn't work like that. The chances I'll break it accidentally and finish last are pretty high. So you hold it and jump, and absorb the impact when you hit the ground. While you do that, I'll do a little magic and give you a boost to the top. Plan?"

Lucy nodded.

"One...two...three..."

The blonde jumped and landed twenty feet on the ground below and in the two seconds it took her to jump back up _everything changed_. It was raining people, and half the mountain was gone. Gildarts punched the bottom of her right foot and sent her flying straight up about sixty feet in the air, and she felt a dizzying sense of fear as she turned her body in the air and aimed to land on the tiny platform at the top.

Lucy was about to make impact when the mountain started to lean to one side. She hit the ground and slid onto her back, careful not to break the glass emblems. She threw on Aries star form and wrapped them in fluff, then wrapped her leg around the flagpole at the top which was now tilted then switched to Sagittarius form as the mountain tilted more.

Rogue came flying from the shadows and hit Gildarts in the leg, causing him to fall, but he had no emblem to break and Lucy was guarding the goal with her bow in hand until he made it to the top.

She took aim at Rogue, and he slapped her arrow out of her hand, having figured out he needed to take her seriously. Milliana came up to claim second, and Lucy swung around the pole and kicked her in the chin.

Laxus looked at his girlfriend as she hung upside down from the pole with a bow in her hands, firing arrows at anyone trying to come up. He'd been pleased that Gildarts drew this particular event because it was possible he'd finish last on the merit of being unable to not cause destruction, but on the flip side of that, everyone came after Lucy. He honestly wanted to open up a big lead between the two Fairy Tail teams, but it wouldn't be suitable for them to both finish at the bottom if Lucy got tag-teamed by Milliana and Rogue. Gildarts and Lucy working together was acceptable and it made their guild look good.

Gildarts hit the top as the mountain started to crumble, and reclaimed his emblem as he touched the goal pole, claiming the second spot.

The mountain, which had absorbed too much crash magic, started to collapse, and they leapt from the top as it crumbled and caved in the floor, falling into the basement below.

Gildarts and Lucy landed on the ground as the entire middle of the floor disappeared downwards, and Mato screamed over the loudspeaker.

Natsu was pleased with the result also, since he'd initially worried Gildarts might sneeze and break his emblem or something ridiculous like that. Destruction really was his specialty, and his partnership with Lucy probably got him the most points they could have had, all things considered.

He also hated it, because Fairy Thunder had swept the Surprise event three days in a row. Their team had stronger wizards, yet they hadn't been able to get to the top of the scoreboard. Part of it was the surprise events, and the other part was that Fairy Fire had drawn some bad matches in the randomizer. Gajeel dueled Jura and lost, and then turned around and had a draw with Lucy. Elfman lost to Kagura, who had become incredibly stupidly powerful.

Lucy drawing Bacchus and Gajeel _was_ rough, but she'd won against Bacchus, drawn with Gajeel, and taken first in her surprise event, meaning she had a total of twenty-five points to her name. Gildarts had won both his duels and finished second in his surprise event so despite the massive gap in their powers, Gildarts only picked up three more points than she did.

Natsu looked across the stadium at Laxus.

Laxus looked back.

Natsu made a mental note to punch his smug little face whenever it was strategically beneficial to do so, and waited for the arena to get fixed because he and Erza both had duels.

Erza fought Kagura, and _lost_.

Even when the games were over, this was considered the biggest upset, but it really came down to a slight mistake of maybe a couple of millimeters of hesitation. Kagura had powered up since their last meeting in the games, and she was ferocious enough Laxus considered her closer to his level, which meant they had another one to look out for on the last day. She was not only deadly, but she seemed to have a stupid amount of determination. He expected people to have moved up at varying speeds since the last time they'd been in the games, but her growth had been uncanny.

The concept of Erza losing was so foreign and strange it was hard to digest, but she took it with grace and congratulated her opponent. It was honestly probably a bigger blow to people who knew her as the unshakable Titania than it actually was to Titania herself.

They seemed to be friendly, and in the next match, Yukino defeated Juvia, marking the first loss for Fairy Thunder.

Juvia fought really well, but in the end, Yukino's gravity spirit altered her gravity while she was in water form and basically turned her into a puddle. The fight was still ridiculously impressive, although when it got to the point where Juvia was on the verge of losing it started to rain and everyone was wet.

In the second round, Natsu pulled Orga and defeated him without much fanfare. Orga was a powerful wizard, but Natsu was on a different level. Laxus was a little amused when the fire dragon slayer broke old the lightning-fire attacks because Orga knew immediately who it came from. Natsu was the third person to use Laxus' lightning, next to himself and Lucy.

Mirajane fought Eve Tearm from Blue Pegasus, and that was possibly the highlight of the day. She used the Satan Soul takeover, and Eve caused some snow to start falling. He made a comment about how beautiful she was, she slapped him around a little, and the match ended.

The guild partied until far too late, and Lucy noticed that Laxus wasn't with them.

She went back to the inn and found him standing in the common room in front of a chalkboard he'd found in a store room. There were scribbles all over it. Names, ranks, powers, and weird symbols and arrows covered it. "Strategy?"

"The last day is going to be interesting."

Lucy sat down on one of the sofas. "So, when were you going to tell me I'm using magic engineered by Master Hades? Because, if you remember, he was _evil_ , and he tried to kill all of us and jump start the apocalypse."

Laxus pinched the bridge of his nose. "God, Gildarts has such a big mouth. I promise he shows up once a year or less, starts a bunch of shit, and then leaves. The magic is fine. You'd know if it was evil since you're the one who uses it."

His girlfriend really wasn't that upset about since she'd had time to think about it. Since she knew the magic inside and out, she knew there wasn't anything wrong with it. "Hey, you're my boyfriend."

Laxus turned from the chalkboard. "I need to finish this."

"Are you ignoring me?"

"Lucy, it would be a little bit ridiculous for us to lose the Grand Magic Games because we decided to date in the middle of them, don't you think?"

Lucy pouted. "You never take me out."

Laxus looked over his shoulder at her. "After we finish these games, I'll take you anywhere you want. You want to go somewhere with me?"

"Like, a romantic getaway?"

"Anything you want."

It really wasn't that surprising that he was like this; he'd always been like this. Honestly, there wasn't a huge distinction between being 'officially' in a relationship and what they'd already been doing. She was the only woman he'd ever talked to, so it wasn't like she woke up and the whole world was different. There had been kissing and some snuggling in a hot tub, but the rest of everything still felt kind of the same.

Laxus turned his attention fully to the chalkboard and she looked him over from behind, from his thick, soft hair to the muscles of his back under his tank, and down to his always-unusually-tight pants. She wasn't complaining. It was really just his thighs they were tight around, because he had some ridiculously muscular legs.

His butt was cute. It was little, but not non-existent. With men, this was perfect, because the only thing worse than a guy with no butt who couldn't keep his pants up with a belt was a guy with a big, juicy bubble butt.

"We lose this way," he whispered as he erased the chalkboard.

He heard her quietly giggle, and one eyebrow rose as he looked over his shoulder at her. "What on earth are you laughing at?"

"Nothing."

"I can _feel_ you looking at me, you know. It's a little unnerving to have a woman look me over and laugh. Is there something funny about me I don't know about?" he asked.

The blonde shook her head and giggled a little at the thought of Laxus with a bubble-butt.

Laxus sighed and went back to work.

The newspapers still called their team a team of misfits because it included Lucy, Gray, and Juvia. Laxus still didn't care much, and he was glad they'd held on to the top spot for most of the games. Even if they didn't finish first, they'd all done so well. Juvia was the only one who hadn't been nearly perfect, and he knew that would be the case. He picked her because she could unison raid with Gray or Lucy., and he needed that skill.

"Laaaaaaaxus," she called.

The dragon slayer sighed. "Not now."

He kept scribbling on the chalkboard, and she noted he had a streak of Mavis in him. There was a little mad genius hidden in him, and that was possibly the reason they'd been able to stay on top despite having 'weaker' wizards.

She still wanted to distract him. No one else would be home for hours as they were partying hard.

Lucy pulled her tank over her head, adjusted herself in her sports bra, kicked off her shoes, and took off her pants.

It was the sound of the zipper that caused him to break the chalk in his hand.

Still, he didn't turn, not even at the rustle of clothes being taken off.

There was really no reason for her to be embarrassed in front of him. He'd seen and touched almost her entire body at different times, so it wasn't that big of a deal.

Plus, despite being a virgin, she didn't have a mind to be sweet and cute about it. Lucy was a long way from the home where she'd been told sex was for married people, and that her marriage would be arranged. At some point in her life, she'd awoken to the unfortunate truth that her father wanted to dictate who she slept with via marriage, and she'd left.

As a wizard, her thoughts and attitude toward life in general were different. Wizards lived for the moment, because their lives were dangerous at times. Nothing was ever perfect, and she knew better than to entertain fantasies or to wait for things to become 'perfect.' Life was happening now, and in this moment of her life, she was with a man who had helped bring the best out of her.

Lucy was eager to explore and experience this undeveloped side of herself. She was curious about herself, about him, about _them_. She had confidence in her body, and a desire to use it to experience life fully.

Laxus started to write on the chalkboard again. "The little virgin is teasing me because I won't pay attention to her," he said in a bored voice.

"Is it working?"

"I'm inclined to ignore you. One, I'm busy. Two, you just want attention."

Lucy scowled. "Aren't men supposed to be easily distracted?"

"Stupid ones. You're being a brat right now."

Lucy became bored with watching him scribble, took a shower, and went to bed.

She'd been asleep for about fifteen minutes when the door opened. Assuming it was just Mirajane and Juvia, she rolled over and hugged her pillow. Suddenly she felt weight on the side of her bed as he turned on the lamp next to the bed.

"It's a shame for such a pretty girl to have to hold a pillow at night," he teased.

She hit him in the face with the pillow, and he grabbed it and lightly hit her back. Then, he bent down and kissed her gently. "I've never had a girlfriend before, but I'm sure ignoring you is probably bad. I'll give you whatever you want once the games are over, okay?"

Lucy nodded. "Okay."

"Goodnight, brat."

"Goodnight, Laxus."

XXX

It was the last regular day.

Once this day was over, they had a day of rest and then the grand finale.

It was Mirajane's day to do the surprise event as well as Erza's, so as they waited on the arena floor, they shared a smirk that hinted at a somewhat dead teenage rivalry. Erza still had some bandages from her defeat at Kagura's hands, but she had insisted on competing.

Mato came to the center of the arena with a microphone and welcomed everyone, then introduced the surprise event. "Today's surprise event is CAGED. During Caged, all the competitors will be suspended in a cage above the arena on an obstacle course covered in monsters. Rankings will be determined by the number of monsters defeated."

Half of the people in the stadium suspected the cage was suspended in the air because Fairy Tail had destroyed the floor three times in the past two days.

They were teleported into the maze, which was comprised of tight crawl-sized tunnels and tiny spaces that prevented the Fairy Tail women from unleashing the havoc typical to them.

Mirajane was squeezing her body through a hole when she met her first 'monster.'

It kind of looked like a baby chick, and the limited space in the maze dictated their enemies be tiny, but she couldn't help it. "You are so damn cute!" she cooed.

Laxus watched on the lacrimatron with thinly veiled horror. "Fuck. Get it together, demon woman..." he grumbled. He didn't know whether to be more annoyed by the fact she was in love with it or the fact it was an imaginary magical object. This was, to him, as grievous to him as watching Juvia lose points for hugging imaginary copies of Gray during the x791 games.

The creature bit her on the finger and Mirajane smiled at it. "Okay, you're going to die now, little guy."

She did a Satan Soul takeover and squeezed it in her fist until it vanished with a poof, then continued wriggling down the tunnel, which was kind of hard with a tail.

Erza was having a very similar problem, as armor in general wasn't working in the tight spaces.

She happened to crawl across Jaeger from Quartro Cerebus and with less than no room to fight, they basically rolled around in the tunnel with Erza steadily punching him in the stomach while he begged for mercy until he surrendered from the game and Erza crawled over him. He made a comment about how her body felt on his, and she snapped her foot into his head for good measure.

Mirajane likewise came across a Scarmiglione wizard and wondered what his name was—did anyone know any of them? Who even know how their guild won the year before, but Mirajane half scared him to death because honestly, if crawling around in a dark tunnel wasn't enough, the glowing demon eyes were over the top terrifying. The fact that she slapped him with his tail only added to the horror and he too surrendered the game.

She didn't find many of the little monsters as she went on her way and she wasn't able to move very fast so she considered her options and did the most obviously thing:

She did a takeover and transformed into Happy so she could freely run through the obstacle course without hindrance. This, of course, came with risks. She was small and Happy didn't have defensive or offensive abilities on par with the wizards in the competition.

When she found more of the little monsters, she scratched them with Happy's claws and turned just in time to be easily and handily defeated by Kagura, eliminating her from the competition.

She teleported outside of the maze and crossed her arms.

Erza finished the event on top with twenty-six kills and Mirajane finished in fifth place with six. Kagura finished second, and hadn't run into Erza in the maze because they started on opposite ends.

Gray fought Beth Vanderwood and won a very awkward victory in a stupidly lopsided match. As Gray put it later, "She fucking threw carrots at me, I didn't even want to hit her."

Laxus had the final duel, so he looked around at the different teams and tried to figure out who hadn't had two duels.

The final match was Laxus Dreyar versus Elfman.

Laxus won, although not nearly as easily as he'd expected. He had a black eye and bruised ribs for the sin of underestimation, but he'd won.

That night, he gathered all of them in the common room and showed them the chalkboard.

Laxus pointed at the chalkboard. "We have a plan, and if we deviate from the plan. We'll lose. Everything has to go according to plan, so regardless of anything that's happened in the games, stick to the plan. If you have a personal grudge, settle it after the games are over."

He pointed to the chalkboard. "There are going to be several stages to the battle in all likelihood. The first move is going to be ours, and it'll last approximately ten minutes. Then specific strong wizards are going to separate from their teams to duel. During that time, smaller groups of weaker wizards will fight. The stronger ones left will duke it out. We'll leave Fairy Fire alone with one exception until all the other teams have been eliminated. Then, we'll fight Natsu's team."

When he pointed to the current scores, he said, "Fairy Fire is in third place because they lost several of their duels. It really came down to luck. Gajeel lost to Jura, drew with Lucy. Elfman lost to Kagura, then to me. Erza lost to Kagura. It's an imaginary lead because it came down to luck. Once this battle starts, it's going to get close between Sabertooth, Fairy Fire, and us. Our goal is to be ten points ahead of Fairy Fire when all the other competitors are out."

"Why ten points?" Gray asked.

Lucy did the math. "If we're ten points ahead when that happens, we'll win. It won't even matter if we can defeat Gildarts or Natsu. A team is only worth nine points when it's whole."

Laxus circled two groups. "Typically, a team concerns itself with difficult opponents and defeats the more incidental ones as they come along. We're going to do the opposite. In the first ten minutes, we're going to make our move. Mirajane will use Satan Soul, grab Juvia and Gray, and go to Scarmiglione and wipe them out immediately. Lucy and I will rendezvous with Blue Pegasus. That's eighteen points and a quarter of all the points available.

"After that, more powerful wizards are going to break off to find specific foes based on upsets during the duels and other personal matters. It will probably happen somewhat like this:

Erza → Kagura  
Lyon → Gray  
Rogue → Gajeel  
Minerva → Laxus  
Orga → Natsu or Laxus  
Jura → ?

"Nearly everyone who leaves their team to pick a fight with someone over a personal grudge will lose. Gray, you'll still be with Juvia and Mirajane. You three find Rufus and get rid of him."

"What about Lyon?"

Laxus said, "You will probably never meet him. Our biggest bluff is going to happen here. Lucy and I will catch Lyon and she'll use her Gemini spirit to copy Lyon and attack Gildarts. This is technically against our truce, and if Gildarts catches on, he'll eliminate our entire team. But if he doesn't, he'll take out Lyon, and Jura will retaliate. We cannot win if Gildarts and Jura don't fight each other. Gildarts will defeat Jura, but he'll be injured. Lyon will be gone. The rest of the members of Lamia Scale are fair game and Gildarts will probably crush them all. Fairy Fire gains nine points.

"Lucy and I will fight Minerva and possibly Orga during this time. Erza will fight Kagura, and probably lose. Kagura is a monster, but after she finishes fighting Erza, Mirajane can finish her off. If Erza wins, she'll be wounded and will be more easily defeated at the very end of the game. As far as we're concerned, it doesn't matter much how that match turns out. Rogue and Gajeel will fight, and Rogue will lose.

"Once Minerva, Orga, and Rufus are defeated, Gray, Juvia, and Mirajane can target the leftovers of Mermaid Heel. Quatro Cerberus is moderately challenging—it would be best to let someone else eliminate their guild. I believe Natsu and Elfman might eliminate Quatro Cerberus.

"Lucy and I meet Yukino, the last Sabertooth member left, and defeat her. By this time, there should be no major players left. We'll eliminate anyone left who isn't a member of Fairy Tail. At this time, if we are ten points ahead, we will win regardless of whether or not we beat anyone on their team."

They went through the plan again, and Lucy took an inventory of her assignments. First, she'd go with Laxus to smash Blue Pegasus, which he would likely do mostly by himself. Her second task with him was to find Lyon, copy him using her Gemini spirit, and then attack Gildarts. Then there would be a battle between her and Laxus and Minerva and possibly Orga. After that, they'd meet Yukino. It was really only three battles, all of which she'd fight with Laxus.

The other part of their team would smash Scarmiglione, then take out Rufus, fight the rest of Mermaid Heel, and pick off stragglers.

It actually wasn't as involved or as hard as it sounded.

Laxus said, "There are seventy-two points possible, and a team with a one-point lead could win on sheer math by earning thirty-six points. We have a nine point lead. If we earn twenty-seven points, even if another team won all the other points, they wouldn't be able to win. We'll earn eighteen in the first ten minutes, and either four or seven on the other Sabertooth members besides Rogue. That means we have to pick up six other points to win. It's doable and we'll win even if Fairy Fire picks up all the other points. If we screw up and mess the plan up or lose any of our members, we'll be fucked."

Lucy committed the plan to memory. What was likely to happen, who was going to be where, who was responsible for what, and she saw her teammates doing the same.

They went over it again in the morning, in the afternoon, and again at night during their day of rest, which they all spent mostly resting, eating, and thinking.

Lucy did have one thing to do before they all went to battle again, and she quietly made her way to the inn where Quatro Cerebus was staying.

She opened the door, and the guild members stared at her in shock.

There was a bar that was empty except for Bacchus, and he watched her approach with a somewhat frustrated expression.

"Hi."

"Hey Pretty Girl."

Lucy sat next to him. "I want to apologize for everything. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Bacchus smiled at her a little sadly and brushed his fingers along the stitches holding his lips together. "Did you use me to make him jealous?"

"I had no idea any of that was going to happen. I wasn't using you for anything. We had a really cute little moment, that's all. I don't know a lot about being in relationships or men, but there were things that happened after. I didn't want you to get hurt," she said.

The wizard shrugged. "I'm a fucking wizard, kid. Getting hurt is part of the job."

"Not your lip...he told me what you said and honestly, you had that coming. I was talking about your feelings."

"Feelings? I guess. Look, I think you're the most incredible woman I've ever met. You're the kind of girl that makes a stupid playboy want to sit around and think about living an honest life. I guess I'm not the only one you have that affect on," he admitted.

Lucy hung her head. "And I'm sorry I caused a problem between you and Laxus."

Bacchus burst out laughing. "Laxus didn't tell you? We've had a fucking problem since the beginning of time. The first time we ran into each other, we were kids. I've hated his guts forever. We always fight. We've never run into each other one not had a fight. So don't feel bad."

It made a lot of sense as soon as Bacchus said it, and she sighed at men and their ridiculousness.

The blonde stood up and said, "Right, well. That's all I wanted to say. Be well, okay?"

"You too, Pretty Girl."

 _ **Please Review!**_

 _ **Special thanks to all my reviewers! I have no idea who you are because the site is being crazy, but I really appreciate you all!**_


	10. Lucy Tough!

The night before the finale, a fierce winter storm struck Crocus.

It was so cold that even in the inn, Lucy was huddled under blankets with socks and thick pajamas. She wondered if the games would even be able to take place the next day, although a part of her wished they would. Inclement weather of the frozen variety was an instant bump for anyone who was on a team with Gray Fullbuster. He owned the winter, and was infinitely more powerful where ice already existed.

Lightning, water, ice...these selections were not made unintentionally. These games had revealed that Laxus was brilliant, focused, and capable as a leader.

She shivered and regretted choosing the bed closest to the door, because the bed closest to the door was furthest from the fireplace.

Lucy thought about crawling into Mirajane's bed, but that was awkward. She didn't want to bother anybody, and she knew from personal experience that it was very bothersome to have an unwanted person crawl into one's bed.

Juvia was out of the question, because she tended to make her bed damp.

Lucy smiled devilishly; she knew a bed she was probably welcome to crawl into.

She wrapped up in a blanket and padded softly down the hall in her socks, carefully opening the door to the room where Laxus and Gray were sleeping. Gray was snoring and talking in his sleep, mouth gaping open. Laxus was sleeping on his face in the middle of his double bed, which was so close to the fireplace.

Laxus awoke when she picked up the thick blankets and crawled into the tiny space between him and the edge of the bed. The room was lit dimly by the flickering fire, and he looked down at her in question as she nestled into the bed wrapped up like a burrito with little socked feet.

"I'm cold, and you have the most body mass _and_ a bed by the fireplace," she whispered.

Laxus slid an arm under her head and she adjusted a little, rolling to face him as she used his bicep as a pillow. He lowered his lips right next to her ear and whispered, "You don't need an excuse to get in bed with me."

"Are you being dirty?"

"Not really. You're pretty and you smell good," he whispered in reply.

Gray slept like he was dead, so Lucy wasn't that concerned about waking him as she nestled in against Laxus' shirt. He draped his free arm around her and she closed her eyes.

His scent, his warmth, his big strong arms, his enormous body next to hers, the steady rhythm of his breathing...it was the most relaxing experience in the whole world, and after spending the last hour shivering, she closed her eyes and sighed contentedly.

Lucy slept peacefully, unaffected by the restlessness that usually haunted her in the middle of the night.

She awoke fully rested, but he was already up so she went down and had breakfast with Juvia in the dining room. Her nerves killed her appetite, but they had a long and difficult day and at some point, she might just barely make it on that smidgen of strength she got from eating breakfast. She'd learned during sixteen-hour training days that carbs and protein made a difference once the hours started to wear on.

Laxus came in an hour later with a bag filled with articles to layer under their uniforms. "It's fucking _freezing_. We're going to be be out in the cold for hours. It's expected to snow during most of the afternoon."

Lucy layered up under her pants and substituted a thick black thermal shirt for the tank, tucking her pants carefully into her boots. Getting wet was her enemy, so she was glad the outer layer of their uniforms would keep them dry. The wind was also an enemy, so she was careful to make sure there was no way for it to blow under her clothes.

She pinned her hair up in a bun and went over the plan again in her head.

When they arrived at the arena, the top had been covered by a piece of glass constructed using magic, and the stadium was warmed and filled with spectators eager to see the grand finale on the lacrimatrons.

Rules were read, and Lucy felt oddly numb.

During her last performance in the games, she got humiliated and defeated twice and then got kidnapped, so this round had been infinitely better. The greatest challenge of the day—and the one they could not mess up—was eliminating Scarmiglione and Blue Pegasus at the start of the game. If they took too long and another guild caught on, or if they failed, their outcome became increasingly bleak.

When they were teleported to their start location and the gong sounded, Fairy Thunder split into two groups as was the plan. Mirajane used her Satan Soul Takeover and unceremoniously snatched Gray and Juvia like a hawk snatching its prey from the ground while Laxus waited for Lucy to get her bow and arrow ready and then took her to Blue Pegasus via lightning form.

Gray and Juvia wasted no time, because what they were doing had to be done quick. There was no trash-talking, no gradual buildup, no casual brawl to size up the enemy. There was only the devastatingly powerful blast of devil slayer ice and the most powerful water magic Fiore knew. Two tried to run, and Mirajane threw them into the vortex with no lack of wicked mischief in her eyes. The demon smashed the two that managed to so much as twitch.

Juvia and Gray were almost without magic after the powerful but brief wipeout of Scarmiglione, but Mirajane barely had a taste and their next task was Rufus, after which they'd rest and recover their magic while other wizards brawled.

Not far from them, Laxus and Lucy prepared to strike their target.

Blue Pegasus was a guild that was bound to the ground—thus necessitating the need for Christina—and for this reason, they attacked from above. Laxus dropped Lucy from high in the air and she charged an arrow with Regulus power and let it go. Laxus timed a crushingly powerful Raging Bolt to impact at the same moment, and went for Ichiya.

Lucy dropped down in the middle of them, absorbed the energy from her fall, and hit Hibiki squarely in the chin with a Regulus Lucy Kick. She knew she had to get him first because he could create a forcefield and there was no reason to strategize if she was just going to bang her head on protective magic. He went down and he stayed down, and from the corner of her eye, she saw Ichiya transform into a taller opponent while he said something about a potion.

"Scorpio! Loke!"

Loke shouted her name and Lucy turned to see what Loke had become alarmed about.

Ichiya was standing in the snow with a victorious smirk. "A powerful parfume..."

And Laxus...

Laxus...

Laxus had been turned into a small child by Ichiya's 'parfume.' He looked to be around four or five.

"EH?! What...Ichiya...you!"

Ichiya was going in for the kill with a punch when she changed to Taurus Star Dress and kicked him in the back of the skull as hard as her powers allowed, sending him flying.

If their team lost Laxus, they lost. Period.

She decided he _was_ a little bit cute as he stood there frozen in horror. Laxus looked at his little hands and growled, jumping on Ichiya from behind when he made the discovery that even though his body was tiny, his magic was unchanged.

"Get _them_! He harshly ordered in his little child's voice as he delivered a lightning-charged punch to Ichiya. Laxus and Ichiya were, oddly enough, closer in height when Laxus was a child than when they were both adults.

Loke brawled Eve to a point of defeat, and then became excessively distracted by Jenny Realight. Unfortunately, Jenny got distracted too, and got hit point blank with a blast from Scorpio followed by an onslaught of hand-to-hand attacks from Lucy.

Jenny put a hand up. "Surely two lovely ladies can resolve our differences in a more civil manner..."

It was weirdly insulting to Lucy for some reason, that she give up her victory to be more civil, simply because she was a 'lovely lady.'

As her boyfriend would say, _Fuck that_.

Lucy punched Jenny in the chin and she crumbled to the ground, causing Loke and Scorpio to give one another a rather surprised look.

All three turned on Ren, who went down just as Laxus defeated Ichiya and returned to his normal size.

Lucy sent all her spirits home and Laxus grimaced at her and said, "That was _disgusting_."

"You were cuuuute!"

"Shut up."

"Awww..."

"Really, this is a serious moment."

" _ **Fairy Thunder wipes out Scarmiglione and Blue Pegasus for eighteen points!"**_

Laxus let out a sigh of relief. "Let's find Lyon. This is the riskiest part. If Gildarts catches us, we're fucked. He'll come after you, but I don't think he'll hurt you. You might wake up next Thursday, but not in pain. As for me..."

The scent wasn't far from them, and since lightning form was more magically detectable, they ran carefully and cautiously, making a series of short sprints to where Lyon was navigating down an alley toward the source of Gray's magic.

Lucy pulled her Gemini key out and the twins appeared. "Okay, guys. We have to pull this off. You know what to do?"

"Piri piri!"

She called another spirit then, and they waited for Lyon to approach.

Lyon turned a corner and ran straight into a man in a horse outfit. "Eh? The hell is this?'

Sagittarius asked, "I was wondering if I could get some directions."

"What on earth is going on here?" Lyon asked, knowing the citizens were all supposed to be evacuated. He wondered if he was actually a citizen, and why he was wearing a horse suit. For a second, he thought he felt something brush against him, but he shrugged it off. "I'm kind of busy."

"Very well. Carry on."

Lyon continued on his way, wondering what the just happened. The strange man hadn't attacked, or done anything really.

Gemini flew towards Gildarts and assumed the form of Lyon, smirking from behind a dumpster. The twins were so incredibly glad that Lucy was using their powers more often, and for mischief? That made it even better.

"Lyon" spun from the shadows in front of Gildarts, who had separated from his team in order to eliminate Kagura in order to prevent her from defeating Erza. Instead, he ran into "Lyon."

"Ice make: Gorilla!"

The beast formed quickly and kicked the Gildarts squarely between the legs.

Gildarts destroyed the gorilla with crash magic and spent a minute or so recovering, at which point Gemini vanished out of line of sight and Gildarts pursued the source of the ice magic.

The actual Lyon sensed something a little strange, but continued on his way until he felt magic crackle around him. The ice wizard turned, seemingly puzzled, and felt panic shoot through his everything at the sight of Gildarts. "W-Wait..."

Lyon's head cracked the cobblestones on the ground when it made impact, and a cocoon of crash magic caused the ground to explode under him after it passed through him. He was down in one blow, completely unconscious.

"Idiot..." the older man grumbled.

Laxus and Lucy watched in complete silence as Gildarts went back to his original path but only made it about a block before there was a huge explosion of earth magic and crash magic colliding.

The lightning dragon slayer let out a sigh of relief, because of all the steps in the plan, making sure he didn't have to run into either of these men at full power was the most important. Anything else went wrong, and they could wing it and possibly still win.

The sheer force with which the older mages collided confirmed what he'd known all along: he didn't want any of that—at least not when he had other things to do. In the last games, he'd fought Jura and while winning was infinitely good for his reputation, he didn't earn many points.

It started to snow with a gust of wind, and visibility started to drop dramatically.

Laxus was grateful for dragon senses as everything turned white around them. According to his plan, they'd definitely run into Minerva next, although there was a high likelihood Orga would be with her.

Minerva was incredibly pissed at him for defeating her in the first duel and then throwing her out of the Forcefield game.

Laxus abruptly grabbed Lucy and pulled her out of the way as Rufus slammed into the ground at her feet.

The blonde looked up and could vaguely make out the outline of wings flapping through the snow.

"D-Demon..." Rufus stammered.

Rufus was not only wet, but his clothes were wet and frozen, his nose was busted, and he'd been thrown around for the better part of five minutes. He was still moving, so she dove and snatched him and disappeared back up into the snow.

Laxus looked up. "Demon, indeed."

Mirajane disappeared back into the snow and Lucy said, "That's actually kind of terrifying."

"If you'd known her back then...this is nothing."

He looked around and leaned on a nearby building. "We'll wait for Minerva here. If we move around too much, it'll increase the likelihood we'll run into a battle that's already ongoing."

There was another explosion in the direction of Gildarts and Jura then, and Lucy asked, "What was she like, back then?"

"Mirajan and I fought three times when we were teens. I only won once. She won once. The third time Master broke us up because we beat each other so bloody in the middle of the guild hall. She was stronger than Erza," he answered.

Lucy sat on a crate in the alley next to him. "So what really happened? I know she changed when Lisanna disappeared. She became nice or something."

"I don't think that was ever it."

"Then what? It's like there's two Mirajane's. One's nice, one's...that. Sometimes I wonder which one is real."

Laxus felt the demon's magic at the edge of his senses. "The demon."

"You're sure?"

He nodded.

They waited an entire hour while chaos went on all around. The snow got thick and their points seemed to stay in one place for a long time because Laxus and Lucy were waiting on Minerva and he'd instructed Mirajane's group not to hit Mermaid Heel until Erza and Kagura finished fighting.

In the first ten minutes, Fairy Thunder had taken their nine point lead, captured nineteen points, for a total of a twenty-eight point lead over Sabertooth and and twenty-seven on Fairy Fire. There were only six teams left, and so only fifty-four points were still in play when the rest of the games had started to play out.

Elman and Natsu smashed Quatro Cerebus and picked up nine points.

Gildarts defeated Jura and the rest of Lamia Scale for another nine points.

Fairy Fire moved into second place and into the ten-point margin Laxus wanted to keep. Then Gajeel defeated Rogue, and Erza defeated Kagura, for a six point swing. They were now effectively three points apart and Fairy Fire had slid into second place.

"Shit," Laxus grumbled.

"Who's left?" Lucy asked.

"Blue Pegasus is out, Scarmiglion is out, Quatro Cerebus is out, Lamia Scale is out...there are probably members of Mermaid Heel left."

A wild wind suddenly whipped by them and Lucy saw a familiar dragon scale scarf lilt through the air. She chased it out into the open and just as she grasped it in her hands, black lightning hit her full-force, sending her to the ground. She screamed, and for a second, she wasn't sure that she'd be able to retain consciousness, but somehow, she felt like the dragon scale scarf absorbed some of the blow from her.

Laxus thought she'd lost her mind as she bolted out, but when he saw what she'd snatched from the air, he understood. He'd never for one day in his life seen Natsu without it, so it was understandable. He wasn't sure if she was going to get up for a second either, and knowing well that lightning tended to temporarily disengage, he grabbed her from the ground and gave her a firm shake before putting her on her feet.

Rufus and Minerva emerged from the snow, and Lucy wiped blood from her nose. Any time energy passing through the body caused blood to come out was a sign damage had been done, and a tremor shook her body.

Laxus gave her an uneasy nod. "I'm going to trust your intuition and get him away from you. If I don't, he'll hit you again and you can't take another blow like that. Don't lose."

Lucy nodded. "I believe I'm right."

"Betting _everything_ on it right now."

Laxus hit Orga with a powerful lightning-fused kick that sent him flying, and then chased him toward the edge of the park.

The two women stared each other down, and Lucy put on Scorpio Star Dress and summoned Scorpio to fight with her.

Minerva ran a hand through her hair, and Lucy wondered how anyone could possibly have good hair in such inclement weather. Magic? That was beside the point, but she wanted to ask. "Your lover made a mess of my guild's reputation. He's a formidable foe, but we'll see how strong he is when I have you by the throat."

Both women moved fast, and Lucy wrapped her whip around Minerva's throat as the woman grabbed the key ring from her belt. Minerva was willing to take the blow to divest Lucy of her keys, and she grasped them tightly as Lucy pulled the whip and kneed her in the stomach.

"When who has who by the throat?!" the blonde asked.

She held her and Scorpio delivered a powerful blast to her as Minerva rolled from the whips embrace, triumphantly holding the key ring.

"Now what?" Minerva asked, and then her expression became blank as she looked at the keys she'd taken an attack to steal. They definitely weren't celestial summoning keys. In fact, they weren't magic keys at all. "What's this?"

"Oh. Keys," Lucy answered, "...to all the bathrooms in the arena."

Lucy saw her flinch.

With a point of her finger, Lucy exclaimed, "I was right! See, when you beat someone like you did back then, they think about it. A lot. And over the past two years, I've gone over every detail of that battle. In that battle, you never attacked my spirits. You didn't even use your magic until they were gone. Then you took my keys. I think you can't use Territory Magic against my spirits because they're not part of Earthland territory, and you know that because you have a celestial summoner in your guild."

Minerva threw the keys down in the snow and held up her hands, which were surrounded in greenish-purple magic.

Lucy clashed with her, and they went at it hard and fast engaging in a brawl that send sand flying everywhere. The blonde summoned Sagittarius, and while Minerva dodged arrows, she also attempted to absorb the impact from the sand.

Minerva teleported Lucy right in front of her face, intent on knocking her out, and she made hard contact with Lucy, who was still shaky after taking the blow from Orga.

She fell again, this time as a wide gash opened on her forehead.

The world spun wildly; she heard thunder, saw flashes of lightning, and she sank into Minerva's Territory space in a daze.

Minerva interrupted the fight between Orga and Laxus, which Orga appeared to be losing, and indicated to the bubble where Lucy was floating in a daze.

"Now. Let's talk, Laxus. You've done far to much to tarnish the impeccable name of Sabertooth. Should we make Lucy pay for your sins, I wonder?" she asked.

Laxus seemed bored. "I'm busy. But I promise if you make me pay attention yo you, you'll be sorry."

Lucy reached for her Aries key and summoned the ram spirit into that tiny space.

"Wool bomb!"

The tiny space started to fill with pink fuzz, became full, and then started to spill out of Territory. Pink fluff surrounded Minerva's hands, and she shook the magic off and turned to find her magic containment spell was filled so full it was about to burst.

Lucy could feel magic building outside of the space she was trapped in but knew she was about to break out.

" _Survey the Heavens, Open the Heavens...All the stars, far and wide...Show me thy appearance...With such shine. Oh Tetrabiblos...I am the ruler of the stars...Aspect become complete...Open thy malevolent gate. Oh 88 Stars of the heaven... Shine!"_

Minerva released her from the space that was about to burst from the wool just as she finished her own incantation for her Eighteen War God's Magic.

" _ **Urano Metria!"**_

The two blasts collided with such an intense pressure that Orga and Laxus were sent flying but did not stop their battle.

Lucy's strongest spell against Minerva's strongest spell...

The blonde felt her feet start to slide as she seemingly pushed her magic in futility. Lucy's best bet at this moment was to hope her magic at least cancelled out enough of Minerva's spell that she wouldn't be knocked out and that she could use her kinetics spell to absorb some of the impact.

Minerva's spell threw Lucy back and then over forty feet backwards, through a window and onto the floor of a shop.

Lucy knew she would have been no match for Minerva if her magic worked on her celestial spirits, but she still had faith. \

She stopped when she sat up and the world spun as warmth trailed down her neck. When she reached back, blood was oozing out of the back of her head, and she considered how beaten up she'd already gotten, but Laxus had trained her in the spirit of Fairy Tail.

Minerva was amused by her as she stood on shaking legs. "Oh?"

"A fairy gets up."

"Not this one."

" _ **Lucy Heartfilia is up on her feet!"**_

The commentators were saying something or another, but everything became silent to Lucy.

Her fingers slipped down to the scarf and she wondered what Natsu would do. He was the undefeated king of _making up a solution and making it work_. Lucy was sure her friend had defied every law of physics and most of the laws of magic, but he had that kind of will. So she knew if she could just become empty enough, the solution was right in front of her.

Minerva threw her threw the window back outside and Lucy managed to land on her feet.

Some of their enemies, they'd crushed by force, but some could be broken by something as delicate as the human tongue.

The scoreboard ticked because Mirajane and Juvia picked off a member of Mermaid Heel.

And she knew.

Lucy relaxed her posture as she did the math.

"Keep insulting my guild. Say whatever you want about whoever you want. We're a wild bunch. Sometimes we're childish. We can't all be like you," she shakily declared, "But I'd rather be me any day! But do the math. You may stronger than me, but if I defeat you, the best Sabertooth can do is third."

Minerva twisted her head and tried to do the math in her head and while she did, she saw the masterful move their team had completed at the start of the game. Unlike prior games, where points steadily trickled through, Fairy Thunder had altered the entire course of the game by taking a huge chunk of the points, causing other teams to adjust accordingly. If they had a strategy when the game started, it was no longer viable.

Lucy was worth one point. Minerva was worth five.

She was locked in battle with an opponent whose powers she couldn't counter, risking more than she had to gain.

She remembered bouncing Lucy's limp form around during the Naval Battle, and everyone who fought as part of their life knew it was intrinsically satisfying to dominate another person. She was powerless and after a while, she didn't even try to fight.

This was not the same Lucy Heartfilia.

Against Gajeel, she'd done nothing but lose to him, but she didn't go down and scored a draw on the sheer strength that she kept getting back up.

It was disheartening.

There was suddenly silence where the booming chaos of thunder had been, and when she looked up, Laxus had Orga by the throat. He was beaten up far worse than he was supposed to be, but he dropped Orga on the ground and looked over at them.

Minerva sank to her knees and fisted her hands. "Do you know how this fight was supposed to go? We knew we'd encounter you together. Lovers...ridiculous. I'd snatch your keys and use you to distract him and fight him with Orga. Once he was gone, you'd be a free point. Then we could get the rest of your team."

Lucy's brows arched. "I wanted to defeat you fair and square, and you wanted to play me for an idiot and a patsy and a pretty little princess who needs my prince to save me. Please. That's so cliché." She shoved Minerva when she started to get up.

Minerva was so frustrated she let out a ragged scream. She hated it, hated them. Laxus humiliated her in their match and discarded her inconsequentially in the surprise event. This was possibly the worst blow of all, being locked in combat and knowing that there was no way to win.

This was the worst, between two fairies. One she'd crushed. The other had crushed her.

If she got up again, it would only be to more humiliation, and she wondered if this was the difference between a fairy and every other wizard. She closed her eyes.

They called her defeat, and Fairy Thunder jumped six points on Minerva and Orga.

When Laxus approached her, he touched the gash on the back of her head and she winced. He had bruises on his face that suggested it had been rougher than expected. This was the hole in Laxus' plan. Laxus underestimated Orga by a bit much, and as they panted and took inventory of their injuries, he knew they'd lost the advantage he expected them to have by staying out of multiple major conflicts.

XXX

Still in a different corner of the battlefield, Jura and Gildarts were sitting up after a nasty battle that left eight blocks of Crocus in ruins.

Jura, defeated by the infamous crash magic mage, took a deep breath. "Your guild has some fearsome wizards. The world of magic is great, although I must say I'm a little disappointed I didn't get to have a rematch with Laxus Dreyar."

"I was planning on getting that little shit too. I've wanted to knock that smug little smirk off his face for about two years now," Gildarts answered, groaning as he stood to his feet.

Jura pulled his coat closer around him in response to a freezing gust of wind. "Let me ask this. Why did you attack Lyon? Small prey for a big predator."

"The bastard started it. He made some ice creature and attacked me."

"That is very unlike Lyon. He typically judges well what battles he can or cannot win."

"Well, I saw him with my own eyes, felt his magic, and..." Gildarts' expression evened out, and then melted into a scowl. "...son of a bitch..."

"Hm?"

Gildarts fisted his hands. "Do you remember during the first game someone created a perfect copy of someone else, but I can't remember who it was. I saw it, and the magic felt identical. Who has that kind of magic?"

"I remember...it was the battle between Rufus and Natsu and Lucy Heartfilia."

"Lucy," Gildarts repeated.

Jura chuckled. "I see. Laxus used her powers to make sure we fought one another. Instead of both of us, he has one in a weakened state. Plus, all the points we would have won for our respective teams have been snatched up while we fight. He's clever."

Shaking snow from his red hair, Gildarts answered, "I'll let him know you think so when he wakes up from the coma I'm about to beat him into."

"Such a lively bunch..."

Gildarts turned and made a beeline for the couple. The games were a bit of good fun for the older generation; they were participating with the so-called 'kids.' He wanted to believe he was too mature to get entangled by fierce rivalries and primarily participated because he wanted to beat up Laxus in public for the sake of good old-fashioned guild rivalry.

There was no chance in hell that he'd let Laxus get away with such a thing, but even defeating Laxus wouldn't really correct the divide he'd opened. There were almost no other competitors left, so Gildarts systematically and quickly moved across the board and eliminated two opponents, one of which was locked in battle with Erza.

 _ **Gildarts defeats Yukino for one point!**_

 _ **Gildarts defeats Kagura for five points!**_

Mirajane, Gray, and Juvia sprung into action per their plan and wiped out the other four members of Mermaid Heel.

The two Fairy Tail teams were both fully intact but beaten to hell and seven points apart, which meant they had to fight one another in order to determine the true winner.

The sun was starting to set and Laxus was frustrated and annoyed that things hadn't played out as intended. "So, I'm fairly certain Gildarts figured us out," he said as he patted the bleeding wound on the back of her skull with a tear of fabric from his shirt. "If he's not in terrible shape we will be fairly soon."

Lucy nodded in understanding, although she suspected Gildarts wouldn't be so harsh with her.

Laxus said, "So what you're going to do now is get very far away from me. Natsu didn't have any ugly fights, so he's probably at full power. Erza is probably weak. Elfman and Gajeel also. Mirajane's magic is about four blocks north, rejoin them and try to pick off someone else. In order for them to win, they have to defeat me and the rest of you except one. In order for us to win, we have to defeat three of them, or the leader—which could be Gildarts or Natsu. We don't know which has leader points."

Laxus poked the end of her nose. "Natsu is your enemy. Do you understand?"

"Of course. Who do you think I am?"

"I'll answer that question at a later date. Now go. Run."

Lucy ran as fast as she could, which was actually fairly fast. She was tired, because violence was an exhausting activity. The cold weather forced their bodies to work in overdrive, and the day had already been long.

A figure stepped into her path, and she froze. "N-Natsu!"

And, even though she'd literally been warned about this situation one hundred and eighty-four seconds earlier, she stopped and smiled.

"Lucy!" he exclaimed as his eyes fell on her wounds. The blood oozing from out of her head worried him, and even though he had also gotten a lecture about this, he did not feel any fight in his bones at the sight of her. He was proud of her for all the determination and hard work she'd put into becoming strong and he couldn't take that from her.

Then he saw his scarf.

The blonde took it and approached him cautiously, wrapping it around his neck. "I couldn't let it blow away."

"Thanks. What are you doing running this way?"

Lucy said, "I'm trying to get back to Mirajane and the others. Laxus told me they were this way."

The dragon slayer turned his head at a dark ball in the sky as it churned with frozen pieces of ice and then crashed to the ground nearby. "What the..."

" _ **Gajeel defeats Juvia for one point!"**_

Fairy Thunder's lead narrowed to six.

" _ **Mirajane defeats Elfman for one point!"**_

Seven.

Gildarts approached Lucy first, because she was a comparatively easy point and she separated from Laxus upon his approach. Plus, it would piss Laxus off more, and that ranked pretty high on his list of priorities. The truth was that everyone on Fairy Thunder was in bad shape and getting worse and Gildarts had more than enough fight to get rid of all of them. And if that wasn't enough, Natsu barely had a scratch on him.

Fairy Fire had, for all practical purposes, won.

Gildarts focused his magic, and struck.

It was Natsu's _instinct_. He could say within his rational mind 'this is my enemy,' but Gildarts' magic was going to hurt her.

He jumped between them and took the blow.

Natsu fell to the ground wounded but still able to fight, but he struggled to catch his breath, neither expecting nor prepared to be struck down by his own teammate and Gildarts was nearly instantaneously attacked by Laxus' most powerful lightning attack.

Lucy watched this unfold, and all she could do was stare with her mouth open. It wasn't a flattering look for her, but what else was there to do? In the span of five seconds, the most powerful mages at Fairy Tail clashed in some tragically clumsy and wrong way. She could only compare it to watching a car accident.

And in the course of ten seconds, the game became a twelve-point match where only eight points were still available.

" _ **Laxus defeats Gildarts for five points and the WINNER OF THE GRAND MAGIC GAMES IS FAAAAAAAAIRY THUNDER!"**_

The crowd roaring in the stadium practically shook the whole city, and fireworks started to shoot up in the sky.

Suddenly, Lucy realized she was so cold, and so tired, and every part of her body hurt. The ringing in her ears sang a song of concussion and she was pretty sure if the ass was breakable, she had broken it when Minerva threw her the window. Adrenaline decreased over the next minute, and she felt the world spin.

Everything went black.

XXX

Lucy opened her eyes in the infirmary and found a certain lightning dragon slayer reading a book as he sat in a chair next to her bed. Both of his eyes were black, his lip was busted, and he seemed a little tired.

"We won," she whispered.

He nodded once. "You did very well. Outstanding. Also, you have a fractured skull, and you've been asleep for a week and a half."

There were a lot of things about this that confused her, and she had to take a minute the digest the idea that a whole week and a half had gone by. Clearly, she missed the ball, the celebrations, and that was all fine because she hadn't come for that anyway. But also...

"If I've been asleep for ten days, why are you still all bruised up?"

"This is from something else," he said, pointing to his face.

"Did something happen?!"

"Gildarts happened. I charged up a pretty high bad karma bill. He is collecting on it in _installments_ ," Laxus explained.

Laxus held up a glossy copy of Sorcerer Weekly. Lucy's picture from when she fired the arrow at Rogue was on the front. It wasn't the weekly games edition, but the big national distribution that everyone was already reading.

There was a long article inside about her, complete with pictures of her firing arrows while hanging upside down during her group event, drinking Bacchus' booze, lunging at Gajeel with lightning fists, and fighting Minerva in a bloody, bruised state.

The games had been one of the most amazing, craziest adventures of her life. She'd fought a guy and gotten kissed by him that night, gotten her first boyfriend, faced her former abuser, stood toe-to-toe with enemies, stood when everyone assumed she should have gone down, and participated in Laxus' grand scheme to win.

It wasn't about being famous; he understood very well how she felt. When he was a kid, everyone thought he was weak, so when he became a dragon slayer, it helped him to make them eat every single word. No matter how much a person pretended they didn't care, it still hurt to have someone look down on them if they already doubted themselves.

There was confidence in her eyes, and she gave him a soft smile.

"You have my complete attention now," he said.

"...and you promised me anything I want."

 _ **Please Review!**_

AN: Lucy went to Bacchus just to clear the air and make sure everything was okay with him. I feel like she would not ever be reckless with anyone's heart. Anyhow, more character development, less punching next chapter.

 _ **Special thanks to LunaStarLady, princekurama,kamila-chan, xxshyxx, kurahieiritr JIO, Aryillia, MegumiYoung, SilverGhostKitsune, H.M. Akhlys, Guest, katekat2001, Thornado, westerngoddess, 12rayne, Paname,aoutre, w1n6s-0f-f1r3, flamey owl, katieboom, mwolfe13, boyceashlee, and cosmo333 for reviewing!**_


	11. Lucy Job!

Laxus blinked in shock.

"That's what you want?" he uttered in complete disbelief.

The blonde nodded.

Laxus disappeared to a closet and returned a few minutes later. He handed over the little cedar box, and Lucy snatched it from his hands eagerly and plopped down on the couch in his apartment. It was their first day home, and he'd made good on his promise to her although her request was quite unexpected.

She asked to see his baby pictures.

His apartment was somewhat bare; there was furniture, but no decoration to speak of. It was obvious it was less of a home and more of a place to sleep and drink. It was the place he stayed between the grand adventures of a wizard, but it seemed somehow a little less bleak with Lucy sitting there. A good woman was, and always would be, the best thing to have in one's home.

Lucy poured the photographs out on the coffee table, turning them right side up and moving them so they were all visible. He sat on the opposite end of the couch with a beer and watched as she sorted through these memories of his life.

Lucy picked up a photograph of a young Ivan with a hugely pregnant blonde. "That's your mom?"

He nodded once.

"She was beautiful. But she's short. Your dad seems tall to be Master's son. You seem _really_ tall to be related to him at all," she commented.

Laxus explained, "My paternal grandmother is very tall. She's almost my height."

"Is? She's still alive?"

"You've met her."

Lucy was confused as she looked up at him, and then she tried to think of all the very tall old women she knew. There was really only one she could think of.

"Porlyusica and Master?!"

Laxus nodded once. "They were on the same team, got drunk one night, and big fucking oops. Gramps was an asshole about it back then."

Suddenly, Porlyusica's confusing concern about her getting involved with a Dreyar man made a lot more sense. Laxus told a short but sordid story of people who were friends but not lovers trying—and failing—to get along well enough to raise a child.

Lucy thought at first that she didn't like her grandson, but then when she looked back through her own memories, she didn't leave him when he inhaled the magic barrier particles. She'd seemed worried to the point of being afraid, so maybe her concern was limited to the idea that Laxus might make the same mistakes as his grandfather with her.

She pushed that thought out of her mind as she went back to her original purpose.

"You were so cute!" she said, waving a picture of him.

He blushed slightly. "Geeze. This is even worse than I thought it would be."

She asked him questions about all kinds of things, and as he answered her questions, Laxus realized she wanted to know him. Not as a dragon slayer or a wizard or as a trainer or anything other than as himself—the guy under all that other stuff. Laxus could understand that, because there was a Lucy that existed under the plethora of labels that had been applied to her also and she was delightful to him.

Laxus didn't really know anything about being in a relationship, because he really hadn't seen many successful ones. In his family, everyone fucked up somewhere, and even in the guild, nobody had a successful relationship while he was growing up.

Lucy looked up at him after she put the photos back in the box. He was really trying, and for some reason, that made her happy.

"We should train tomorrow," she said.

He nodded. "I think you're at a point where we can relax the training schedule a little. Keep your body in good shape, keep working your magic, and you'll have steady progress from here on."

The blonde abruptly climbed onto his lap, straddling him, and took the beer from his hands and put it on the end table next to the sofa. She put her fingertips in his hair and played with it, and he felt some unexpected joy about how she liked his hair. It was relaxing for her to touch it, and it was affection that really had nothing to do with sex, and that was new to him. The feeling was fresh, clean, and sweet.

Up to his grand Lucy moment, he didn't appreciate physical intimacy at all. He had sexual urges, and he would meet them and move on. He didn't like a woman to be close to him, so most of his sexual romps involved a woman bent over on the bed and minimal kissing and other touching.

Laxus felt like Lucy could invade his space in any way she felt and he wouldn't mind at all. She was an affectionate girl, and he was quiet and still as she her hands moved to his cheeks and she stared into his blue eyes like she could see straight through him and still wanted to be with him. _That_ , he decided, was disarming.

"You can touch me. It's okay," she whispered.

Laxus brought callused hands up and slid them through her silky golden hair as it fell down her back, and then ran his palms along the unexpectedly sexy curve of her shoulders to her muscular back and then down to her perfect little hips until his fingertips arrived at her firm but still amazingly round ass.

Lucy had the leaner body of a fighter, but she was still soft in the right places.

He squeezed a little, and out of instinct, Lucy's back arched and she moved in his lap a little. A gasp escaped her lips. "Laxus?"

Porlyusica told her once it only took one spark, and that moment was it.

Their eyes met for just a second before their lips crashed against one another.

He'd taught her to follow her instincts when it came to her body, and even though he'd been talking about fighting, it was applicable to this beautiful, frantic entanglement of bodies.

Her eyes snapped closed and she felt his warm, callused hands slide under her skirt.

Laxus felt her fingers slide under the hem of his shirt and momentarily forced himself to come back to earth. "Is this the way you want it?"

Lucy briefly considered all in her life, but the truth was that she'd become brave and confident about her own body and as part of that process, she'd shed her girlish feelings about touch. She could punch, she could kick, she could jump, she could do so much to determine her own fate with her own body. Her hands, her feet, her legs, her arms, her body...they had ferociously ambitious blood pumping through them. She wasn't afraid, and she didn't feel awkward or nervous.

Lucy pulled back and looked up into his eyes again as she pulled his shirt upward. "One of the reasons I left my life as a spoiled heiress was so that I can be with who I choose, and I'm choosing you. I'm not scared, and I won't have any regrets, no matter what happens after right now."

XXX

Laxus wasn't a complete imbecile, so as he looked down at her, he _knew_ what they'd done was different than anything he had ever experienced in his life. There were half a dozen spent condoms in the trash and a gorgeous woman sound asleep in his arms and he knew he had every intention of keeping her there.

The first time, he'd been left shuddering as he lay between her legs, almost unable to disentangle himself from her. She was shaking too, and when he moved, she moved with his body to keep him close to her.

With every other woman he'd laid down with, he'd never been anything remotely resembling passionate, but with her, his hands and his mouth and his everything were seemingly everywhere, all the time. He wanted to hear every gasp, every moan, every time she whispered his name as her fingernails dug into him.

He knew what was happening inside of him, and while unexpected, it wasn't unwelcome. No one really likes to be alone, no matter how much they pretended to prefer it. Going to sleep alone, waking up alone, suffering alone, celebrating alone, masturbating before bed, and crazed, pointless sex with strangers was hardly a glamorous or exciting lifestyle. And maybe he had to experience this in order to recognize how terrible all that really was.

He felt a sense of completion he'd heard people speak of, but had never experienced personally. So as he rested his head against hers and slipped back into a state of sleep, he decided it was okay for her to wreck his world. He was happy with her in it.

There was a knock on his door that awoke him and he looked over at his clock and found it was 3:24 am.

He carefully removed himself from her and slid from between the sheets, pulling his boxers on.

The magic he sensed on the outside of his door prevented him from caring further about dressing and he opened the door for his grandfather, who pushed past him and entered.

"Gramps."

"Laxus."

Makarov hiccuped and stumbled past his grandson to the bathroom.

It really wasn't an uncommon occurrence for Makarov to get so trashed he couldn't make it all the way home. On those nights, he'd gotten into the habit of crashing on his grandson's couch.

Laxus waited for Makarov to come out of the bathroom and picked him up by the collar. "You're not staying over tonight."

"Why?"

"I have _company_."

Makarov chuckled. "Oh? Speaking of which, have you seen Lucy?"

"Fuck off and go home."

He really was too drunk to make it any further, and Laxus considered hauling him the last mile but this was something Lucy would have to deal with. Everyone else was familiar with how they were at the guild, but since his return from exile, they'd had an up close and personal relationship that was both rewarding and annoying to both at different times, usually in tandem. When Laxus was annoyed, Makarov was amused, and so forth.

Laxus got a pillow and blanket from the closet. "Don't bother her, you loathsome old goat."

"Wouldn't dream of it, you ungrateful spoiled ass."

Makarov burped and yawned and put his head down on the pillow, and Laxus threw the blanket over him.

The old man sighed in contentment. "I just had a fantastic idea."

"What."

"Poke holes in all your condoms..."

Laxus narrowed his eyes. "I have my father's blood too. I'll fucking leave the kid on your doorstep and skip town for fifteen years."

"Bah. I call bullshit on that all day long. You're like Pinocchio," he said, referring to the book he'd been reading to Asuka, "when you grow up, you're not going to be made of wood anymore. You won't be hard. You'll be a real boy."

His grandson shook his head. "Go to sleep, old man."

Laxus turned the lights out and just before he went back to the bedroom, he heard Makarov's voice again.

"Do you know the difference between a good leader and a great leader?"

He looked across the dark living room. "No."

Makarov said, "A good leader knows how to direct his troops to victory. A great leader knows how to show his enemy's troops the way to defeat. "

"Don't go getting sentimental because you drank too much," his grandson quietly answered.

The old man hiccuped and settled under the covers, and Laxus returned to his bedroom where Lucy was sound asleep. She snuggled up to him, half-asleep, and then returned to a state of slumber until morning.

When Lucy woke up, her boyfriend was still asleep and she looked around for her clothes and then opened his closet and took one of his button down shirts. It was purple, and it went almost down to her knees. She wasn't sure if she'd ever felt so satisfied with being filthy in her life. There was a scent in the bed of sweat and effort that seemed like some protracted battle had taken place there.

She slipped quietly to the bathroom, missing the very short man in the living room and took a shower, washing the traces of them off of her. In some ways, she felt like a different, more mature woman. The girlish insecurities of virginity had been demolished by the dragon slayer sleeping in the next room. She smiled a little when she remembered him _begging_ , and then smiled a little more when she remembered how he paid her back for that.

Sexuality was empowering and it made her feel a confidence in her body that she had never known.

She dried off and wrapped a towel around her head before buttoning up the shirt and stepping out to find Makarov in the kitchen, cooking eggs and bacon.

"M-Master!" she ducked behind a corner and peeked out at him.

The old man grinned at her. "Good morning, Lucy! You're probably hungry."

She continued to hide.

"I already know you've been here all night, so you might as well come out and eat."

Lucy crept slowly and came to sit at the table. "It's not what you think!"

"Relax. There's no crime in being with the person you love. I'm glad it's you. You're a good girl—fiercely loyal, patient, and kind. Laxus needs someone like you to reach his full potential," he said as he seasoned the eggs and gave them a stir.

Lucy accepted his approval with a nod, although she did wish he hadn't caught her creeping out of Laxus' bed.

Makarov smiled gently at her. "Be patient with him. He's going to be a great man. He just had a rough start. But this... _you_...are a sign he's going to be all right, I think. A lot of people don't realize it when they're young, but love matters. Love can give you the strength to push through all the adversity in the world and reach for your future without fear."

Knowing Makarov had missed it when he was young helped Lucy understand their family a little better, and they spoke seriously but quietly about love, about life, about Laxus Dreyar.

Laxus went to shower when he awoke to the smell of food and came out just as Makarov finished cooking. The two men picked and insulted each other throughout the meal about all kinds of things. They seemed comfortable, and Lucy enjoyed watching them go at it. They were just alike, just from different generations. She believed they'd probably had to go through a lot of difficult times to get to a point where they could simply have a meal together, so she was happy for them.

They were almost like a real family for those few minutes; the grandfather, the grandson, and the grandson's girl. And she knew if they weren't there together, they'd all be alone, so this was infinitely better.

Makarov addressed them both toward the end of the meal, while Lucy was trying to figure out where her clothes had ended up and Laxus was considering whether or not he should tell her since she'd put them on and leave, and he didn't necessarily want her to do that—ever.

"We have a special job request. The Council approached us on behalf of one of the country's nobleman. They asked for Lucy specifically, citing the job requires her powers. The client doesn't want anyone else involved," he explained.

Laxus looked up at him. "That's suspicious as hell."

"The reward is the Aquarius key and ten million jewel."

Lucy gasped.

Makarov explained, "I'm very suspicious, and I believe if it's not a trap that there's likely more to it than was offered. I know that key is something you'd fight for more than jewels or fame or bragging rights. But, my suggestion to you is that you barter with the client and sell yourself a little short. If they believe you can't do it by yourself, they'd probably allow you bring a companion."

"Who should I bring then? Natsu? I don't think he'd mind," she asked.

Laxus pinched her ear lobe lightly and gave her a little jolt of electricity. "Who?"

Makarov laughed at them, but he was so happy to see his grandson so relaxed and content with a woman's presence. He left them alone after the meal was over and told her to meet him at the guild at three that afternoon.

As soon as the door closed, Laxus watched Lucy search all over his apartment.

"Do you know where my clothes are?"

"Maybe you should ask Natsu," he lightly teased as he sat up on the kitchen counter.

Lucy played the afternoon before back over in her mind and they'd started out on the couch, and then he'd taken her shirt off over against the wall by the window, but there was nothing. "This isn't funny. I can't wear your clothes outside."

"You could, but everyone would know what kind of trouble you've gotten into. Or, if you will, what kind of trouble has gotten into you," he answered with a smirk.

Lucy couldn't help but smile a little as her cheeks colored slightly. "This shirt is ugly."

"Then take it off and come here."

"We literally just lost almost an entire day. We should have been training."

Laxus gave her an incredulous glare. "Are you saying you don't feel like you had a good workout? I can do worse if you'd prefer."

His dryer buzzed and she opened the little utility closet and rolled her eyes at him as she pulled her clothes out of the dryer. "Don't tell me Gramps washed my clothes..."

"He's like that."

Laxus smirked again and slid off the counter, then took her panties from her. "These belong to me now."

She tried to snatch them back, and he held them over his head. She jumped and pulled at them and he wrapped an arm around her back and pulled her against him.

"I need to go home, Laxus, and be a normal person. People are going to think I'm missing at this rate."

"Everyone probably figured it out by now."

"We can't just lay around in bed all morning!"

"Why not?"

And then she realized that Laxus really, truly just did not want her to leave him alone. She wrapped her arms around his neck sweetly and embraced him, and when he knew she knew how desperate he was to keep her there, he felt embarrassed and bothered and let her go.

Lucy dressed and went home, feeling some crazy amount of excitement as she stepped out into the winter air and all but ran home. She and Plue had a productive morning together, and she spoke softly with her beloved little spirit about how it felt to be in love for real.

When it was time for her to meet the client who had the Aquarius key, she met Makarov at the guild and they went together from there to a restaurant. There, in a private room in the back, was the richest man in all of Fiore.

Makarov knew his face from the papers, but he felt anger radiate off Lucy as the approached and knew she knew him some other more personal way. He knew she had high society connections galore, but had disavowed them and never called upon them again.

The robust man stood and offered a hand to Makarov.

"Please to meet you, Master Makarov. I am—"

Lucy cut him off before he could finish his introduction. "Duke Sawarr."

The duke smiled at her a little.

He wasn't an attractive man by any means, measuring up only to Lucy's height, but at over three times her weight. His brown hair was curled at the ends in an artistocratic style, his ears were strangely huge, and he peered at them with gray eyes through thick glasses. He was in his mid-forties, and his eyes traced over Lucy in a way that made Makarov glad Laxus had not been invited to this meeting.

He might have done worse than try to punch the poor guy's lips off as Laxus had done to Bacchus, although the sight of his grandson in love enough to fight about it made Makarov happy for some reason.

"You two know one another?" Makarov asked.

Sawarr explained, "I've always been very fond of Lady Lucy. It seems much of Fiore has fallen for her these days, but I was the first to fall madly in love with her charm."

He reached for her hair, and she slapped his hand.

"After all these years, you still resist..."

The blonde postured herself like someone who was going to strike at any moment. "After all these years, you're still a creep!"

Sawarr's lip curled into a snarl. "Still wild. I thought you were untamable by any man, but I've heard you've been involved with a few: Natsu Dragneel—the one who spends all night at your apartment. Gray Fullbuster—often seen half-naked with you, Bacchus Groh—the casual fling, and Laxus Dreyar...God even knows what you're doing with that freak of nature."

"Do you want me to spell it out for you?" she indignantly hissed.

Makarov wordlessly allowed the tension to churn and the sparks to fly, because he knew Lucy's determination to regain her key was much greater than her dislike for this man, as disgusting as he was. Had this been a year prior, he never would have allowed it, but she was at a point where she didn't need anyone trying to protect her.

And then, she whispered, "You're disgusting."

The duke laughed at her evilly and held a glimmering, beautiful golden key out. Lucy could feel the magic emanating from it. Aquarius was so close, and her heart ached.

This was still the same game the men had played with her before. Duke Sawarr leveraged wealth against her when she was young, offering her the whole world for her hand in marriage. She ran, and her father betrothed her to him anyway, which resulted in Jude Heartfilia's ill-fated decision to send Phantom Lord to retrieve her. When that didn't work, Sawarr brought the Heartfilia name to ruin, and went so far as to take possession of every penny of wealth they'd had.

That key was just leverage, and had it been anything else in the whole world, she would have turned and walked away.

Lucy pushed him when he took a step closer and on her step forward, donned Scorpio Star Dress. "Listen, Duke. I'm not just a wizard. I'm a powerful wizard and if you cross me, I'll make you regret the day your poor mom let her parents force her into a Junelle marriage...don't get your panties in a twist because I didn't do the same. You will _never_ be the kind of man I'd look at. Get that through your head, and let's keep this professional. You have something I want. There's something you need me to do, so get to it and tell me what this is really about!"

Like this, she was infinitely intimidating to him as her little metal scorpion's tail whipped in irritation.

Sawarr took a step back. "The job is going to be difficult."

"...and it requires me for what reason?!"

"Easy, little monster. A dark wizard was paid to steal something from my home. The Junelle diamond was taken by a dark wizard who came from Indus. I want you to travel to Indus and retrieve it. You're the only wizard that has ever seen the Junelle diamond, and despite being unimpressed, I'm sure you remember what it looks like."

Indus was literally on the other side of the world, and never in her life had Lucy imagined she'd end up traveling there. Once in a while, there were rumors that there were great wizards in Indus, so he was essentially requesting she travel and alone to a place that would pose unknown risks and challenges.

But, if she could do it, she could have her first friend back in her life. That was worth anything to her.

Lucy met his eyes. "I won't go alone. That's too far, and if I remember correctly, the Junelle diamond is the largest diamond in the world. It's probably been stolen at the orders of some mighty family who might have unknown magical resources guarding it. You have to increase the reward, and you have to pay us half up front since we have to travel, one-fourth of it in Indus currency."

"You take too many people and it'll be suspicious. No more than two companions," he quickly argued.

Makarov watched them shake and Junelle gave her the paperwork. He no longer suspected this was a trap but knew some piece was missing.

Sawarr added, "Be careful. There are rumors that the Junelle diamond has great magical properties."

"How did it come into the possession of your family?" Makarov asked.

"The legend is that a celestial summoning wizard named Anna Heartfilia was given the diamond by a lightning dragon she knew and upon her death, arranged for it to be given to my family. My family is under a curse and none of us can use magic, so it has no effect on us," he explained.

The dots really connected themselves: a celestial spirit wizard and a lightning dragon.

No one present really believed any of this was a coincidence, although the meaning and relevance of fate were, at the moment, hidden from all of them.

Makarov was possibly most concerned about the fact that Lucy's ancestor was connected to a lightning dragon. History had a peculiar and strange way of repeating itself, as if it was the very nature of the universe. This was especially true with tragedies and although little was known about how Anna Heartfilia's story ended, it was safe to assume they were both dead in the end.

The made their agreements and Lucy stared at the golden key for a moment before they turned to leave.

Despite his caution, Makarov could see very easily the effect Laxus had on her. When she first came to the guild, she was easily intimidated and seemed uncomfortable in her own skin. Somehow—whether intentional or not—she'd learned how to take control of what was going on around her. She was confident, trustworthy in battle, and had she not been both, he would have pulled the plug on this entire operation.

While they were walking together back to the guild, Makarov said, "You know you can't leave Laxus behind. Team loyalties or no, you can't lay down with a man who cares about you and then disappear to the other side of the world for an unknown amount of time in an unknown amount of danger. He would hunt you down and when he found you, everyone would be sorry."

"I know. He's probably the most important person to bring too. The diamond belonged to a lightning dragon, so he might have some link to it."

"And the other person?" Makarov asked.

"Natsu?"

The old man shook his head. "I won't allow it—this guilds enemies would jump at the idea that Natsu and Laxus are gone. Take Wendy if she'll go."

"Wendy?"

"If there are battles that you and Laxus cannot win, adding a third person probably won't improve your chances of victory. What Wendy will do is increase the chances that none of you will die if it comes down to it," he explained.

Lucy nodded in understanding.

Makarov looked up at her. "There are rumors that there are dragons alive in Indus. I doubt it's true, but tread carefully. This might be the biggest adventure of your life or your biggest mistake. And remember, if you can't complete the mission, it's better to come home and live than to die trying. Aquarius would understand that also."

"I understand."

Lucy explained to Laxus first, and she could tell he was uneasy at the idea of leaving the side of the world they knew. The continent and Alvarez were close enough that they were 'the world' to most people. Everyone knew there was land on the other side of the world, and a few times in a person's life, they might run into travelers from Indus who told wild stories.

At the same time, it was the heart of a wizard to adventure, to wander, run, jump, and seek the unknown to find out what lied there at the depths of uncertainty.

Wendy was similarly tempted and agreed to journey far, far from home for the sake of this wonderful adventure. Truthfully, she was most lured toward agreeing because she'd get to spend time with the person she casually thought of as her big dragon brother and a woman she'd come to admire. Wendy also fell under the weight of being called a cute little girl, but she knew Lucy had shed that label and she had confidence in herself to do the same someday.

They spent a week preparing for the journey, tidying up unfinished business, cleaning and clearing up their homes in case they were gone for a while, packing, and making travel arrangements.

Porlyusica concocted several doses of a serum to ward off motion sickness using herbs that were normally nothing short of impossible to get, but Lucy was an amazingly adept mountain climber at that point in her progression as a wizard and she was happy to get anything that might help them.

She packed them a first aid bag with herbs, serums, magic potions, bandages, and tools, just in case they ran into disaster on their way, which was almost guaranteed. She explained what everything was and made a guide, which she entrusted to Wendy.

They boarded a boat in Hargeon and left everything they had known, unsure when they'd see the shores of Fiore or the guild hall again.

Lucy stood on the edge of the ship and looked out over the water. The Grand Magic Games left her feeling victorious and confident, and having a boyfriend was really so amazing she almost couldn't believe it, but the real reason she'd gone through such rigorous training was so that she could go on adventures and fight with her friends.

She could practically taste the excitement on the air as the ship ventured farther into the ocean, until there was no land visible anywhere at all. The future awaited them on some distant, strange shore, calling back to the past where all of them had been connected.

 _ **Please Review!**_

 _ **Special thanks to boyceashlee, xxshyxx, yukino scarlet, ilarual, megumiyoung, kurahieiritr JIO, guest, aoutre, SilverGhostKitsune, paname, thornado, guest, aviend, axltz, dragonq, 12,w1n6s-0f-f1r3, 12rayne, flamey owl, katieboom, daeimagines, mirienka, katiekat2001, and mwolfe13 for reviewing!**_

AN: There are several more arcs in this story. So if you like short stories, sry.


	12. Lucy Travel!

From one boat to another, to another, to another, and finally, in the port town of Oceano, they made their last stop before the long trip across the ocean to the other side of the world. It was uncommon for people to travel because the journey was dangerous, and during this time of the year this was exceptionally true.

Oceano was the largest port in the world, and it was located in the small but wealthy nation of Halis. It was the only port that accepted boats to and from Indus. There were regulators and investigators everywhere, as if they were trying to either watch what was leaving the continent or what was coming in. Both ideas were bothersome, and once the regulators checked their fake passports, the entire group was taken to an interrogation room.

They were walking when Laxus and Wendy both caught the scent of gunpowder and looked at one another as they passed crates that were tightly sealed and marked for export to Indus.

Away from Fiore and the peninsula, their faces and names were almost irrelevant, but they still used fake ones. They had an entire fake backstory they'd cooked up while trapped in one ship after another. The story became deeper and more involved as the hours of boredom wore on.

They were instructed to sit on a row of three old metal chairs, and several dark-skinned men came in.

"Fiorians."

"That's what our passports say," Laxus curtly replied.

Lucy answered him, explaining, "My brother and I are taking our adopted sister to Indus. She was adopted from there many years ago. She wants to visit her family."

They'd learned along the way that the native people of Indus had blue hair, which was possibly one of the reasons Makarov suggested they take Wendy.

The man looked from Laxus to Lucy, trying to determine whether or not they were bullshitting him, but it wasn't hard for him to believe they were siblings. They were both blond-haired, they seemed to be somewhat close in age, and they seemed close both with one another and with the younger girl. The eldest seemed very protective of the women.

"Very well. Due to our current treaty with Indus, we weren't permitted to allow tourists to leave the country, or anyone who could potentially pose a threat to their nation. If this is for a family purpose and not purely for tourism, it's permissible. Are any of you suffering from any chronic or acute illness?"

They all answered in the negative, and the man had a nurse come in to draw blood.

"We have to certify you healthy before we can sell you a ticket to Indus."

Wendy wasn't bothered by this and Lucy followed suit, but both of them watched as Laxus looked a little nauseated at the sight of the needle. The idea he didn't like needles was strangely and ridiculously funny to Lucy since his job was so unspeakably dangerous. The needle sank into his skin, and he looked away.

The nurse, an older woman, chuckled. "It's always the big strong ones."

"Ugh..." he groaned at the idea someone had noticed his nervousness about the needle.

They took the blood away, and the nurse took it to the lab where a series of tests were done. They all tested negative for every disease, and the nurse dropped a few drops of their blood with a solution to test for ethernano in the blood and left the vials to develop over the next hour.

The customs officer came into the room with some paperwork and started to fill it out around the time that he expected the tests to be complete. "It takes about ten days to make the journey, assuming you're on a good ship and you don't run into any trouble. There are violent storms, and even more violent monsters in the sea supposedly. A lot of vessels disappear between here and there."

The nurse brought the reports to him, and he read over them and waited for her to go.

He said, "Indus doesn't want any wizards coming into their country from this continent unless they have a signed form from the Indi government. So we did a test to check the levels of ethernano in your blood."

"I assume we all failed the test," Laxus answered in annoyance.

"Of course. In fact, you, sir, failed to test so hard your blood broke our equipment. You can't travel to Indus."

This was bad news, but it was hardly an 'end.' Telling a wizard they couldn't legally do something was a pointless waste of breath. If they couldn't get to Indus legally, then they'd do so illegally and without any hesitation.

Although it was illegal for them to travel to Indus, it was not illegal for them to be in Oceano, so they were turned loose into the city to find alternative means, but it was late, and they'd already been traveling for weeks so in lieu of stressing about their passage, they opted to relax for the evening, get a hotel room, and enjoy life.

Weeks on ships was, for Laxus, something like dying slowly. Even with nausea remedies, he still felt gross most of the time. Wendy was starting to show signs that perhaps she was going to start getting motion sickness as well.

In this strange place, where people spoke a different language but most understood some of Ishgar's basic words, he was fiercely protective. Lucy and Wendy both knew they better not get out of his sight at any time for any reason. They both had fairly unique magical powers that would be worth a kidnapping, and with all the strange smells and urban clamor they were surrounded by in port cities, it would have been nearly impossible to track and find one another again.

Worst case scenario, if someone were to grab one of them and leave by ship, they might _never_ reconnect. There was, therefore, a level of danger that was rarely present on other jobs.

They moved as a unit, always together.

When they stopped at a store, they stocked up on all the things they'd need until they got to Indus. It was reasonable to assume they'd have the same basic necessities there, so two weeks worth of soap, deodorant, tampons, shampoo, and so forth went into the basket.

They were eating dinner at a restaurant that looked over the port when Wendy asked, "Did you smell the gunpowder?"

Laxus nodded. "They're shipping tons of the stuff to Indus. Some of these ships are probably filled with nothing but gun powder."

Lucy considered this and apprehensively said, "Gunpowder...fireworks or weapons."

"No chance in hell that much is for a celebration. Probably bombs."

Their table was on a balcony, so they could see the naval vessels as well as trade ships coming to and fro, most bound for the other continent. One ship was being loaded with what appeared to be fairly heavy fare, and upon further inspection, all the ships had cannons and other weaponry. The sea was evidently an unfriendly place, and it seemed the primary reason anyone was crossing the ocean was to move gunpowder and probably other weapons to Indus.

Lucy wondered what was going on in this strange land.

And then she had another thought entirely.

"So if no one who has ethernano in their blood can come to and fro from Indus, that means the wizards who took the diamond had a signed form from the Indi government. I bet it's on file in the custom's office," Lucy said.

Laxus took a bite of his strange but delicious fish. "Lucy, this is not your old team. We're not going to break in and piss off a whole government. That's how Natsu operates. We're in a strange land. We have to be careful."

"No one is going to break in," she answered, holding the Gemini key between her fingers.

It was worth the risk, they all decided, because at present, they were going to a huge, foreign continent to try and find an object that had been stolen with no suspects and no leads. If they could get even a name or a face to put with it, it might mean the difference between a successful mission and a ruined one.

So in the middle of the night, they crept back to the custom's office, which was closed except for a segment of the building where they were working on ships that came or left during the night.

The man who had interrogated them that afternoon was still at work and he came out to smoke at a little after midnight, looking like a tired, paper-pushing government pawn.

He was leaned up against a dark corner of the building halfway through his second cigarette when a whip wrapped lightly around his throat and he was pulled into the bushes.

Laxus used a sleeper hold, and he was out cold.

Gemini assumed his form and stood up slowly before walking into the building. He opened a side door for them into the dark section of the warehouse-like structure and they walked under the dim lights toward a corridor. "The records are this way."

Laxus had the man slung over his shoulder, and Wendy ran along beside him as Lucy and Gemini walked ahead.

Gemini opened a locking mechanism with the man's thumbprint and opened the door to a room filled with filing cabinets, and then went straight to one specifically. "This is where the Indi Waiver Forms are kept."

Laxus dropped the man on the floor and Wendy said, "Laxus, it seems like he was only doing his job. We hurt him."

He looked down at her. "Wendy, he's not hurt. His job is enforcing a rule that's going to start a war. Everything that's going on here is crooked. The naval ships, the gunpowder, the fact Indus sends wizards outside of its borders but doesn't want any coming in."

Wendy hadn't considered this and wondered how big of a problem they were really getting themselves into. If Laxus and Lucy weren't nervous, she decided she wouldn't be either since she was with two powerful fighters.

Lucy sorted through the files carefully and pulled a file folder from the drawer. "Two months ago...only four people came over with waivers for ethernano testing."

"You can read that?"

"The forms are in four different languages."

Lucy showed him the paperwork. "Marin Tulsey, Hera Othin, Mikail Taro, and Gauge Fore. Affiliation: Z-43215. I wonder if that's a number for a guild or some kind of an organization..." she looked up at Gemini.

Gemini sorted through the man's memories. "It refers to the district in Indus they come from."

The blonde smirked. "Names and a location? Perfect."

They went from there to his office, where Gemini stamped their paperwork. "There's a ship leaving tonight. The Clandestine," he said.

Lucy nodded. "So if we get on before they find him, we'll be able to leave."

Gemini nodded.

They tied the customs officer up with a rope from the curtains and put him in a nearby closet, and then dashed out to get their things.

Laxus got their bags while Lucy took their paperwork to the captain of the Clandestine and charmed her way into letting them buy fare. The ship happened to have one private cabin left, and the entire belly of the ship was filled with trade goods, so right as they finished loading, the ship took off with the three on board.

XXX

The cabin was small, and it had two beds affixed to the wall, along with a small writing desk and a little place to keep their bags. It was an obnoxiously small place for three people to be for ten days. The bed on the bottom was smaller than the one above it, so Laxus laid down on it and listened to Wendy and Lucy above him.

Everything in the world annoyed the hell out of him by the morning. He took a motion sickness potion, but he felt cramped in that little space and the creaking of the rusty springs combined with the noises of being on a ship were far more than he was equipped to tolerate.

They were far enough from the shore that even if someone wanted to kidnap one of the girls, there was no place to go but oblivion, so he slid off the bed and went up to the deck of the ship.

The men on the boat were working steadily, doing this and that, and he was surprised to see a huge plume of smoke arising from the direction of Oceana.

"Did something happen overnight?" he asked one of the sailors who was climbing up the mast.

The man nodded. "The rebel ships from Parisan struck overnight because Ocean has been exporting explosives to Indus. They're at war—Parisa and Indus. We were the last ship to get out."

He introduced himself, "I'm Filmore, the first mate."

"Laxus."

Filmore offered him the scope and Laxus looked through it and was surprised to see he could still see what was going on in Oceana even from so great a distance. The whole city was in ruins, and ships in various states of sinking dotted the port. There were men running with weapons through the streets, and he was glad they'd made it out before the mayhem.

There was a massive explosion as one of the ships burned.

"Parisa burned up all the gunpowder?"

"If it makes it to Indus, they'll just use it to kill Parisans."

Laxus gave the scope back. "What's the war about?"

Filmore explained, "A hundred years ago, they had a border skirmish and Indus defeated Parisa miserably and occupied the country. Parisa raised up some wizards and they are fighting for their independence. Indus has four really powerful wizards that are wrecking Parisa and all the people in it."

"Four...they're names wouldn't happen to be Marin, Mikail, Hera, and Gauge?"

"You got it."

Filmore asked, "Why are you going to Indus? You looking for trouble?"

"What do you know about their magic?" he answered.

The first mate thought about it. "They call themselves the Four Dragons. All I know is Mikail uses lightning. He's the Indi Lightning God. The others aren't known so well."

Laxus let out a 'hmph' and looked back at the smoke rising over the port.

"They're said to rival the Four Dragons of Ishgar."

"Four dragons of..." Laxus trailed off with the thought, _'oh, that must be us.'_

The first mate went back to his work, and Laxus found himself incredibly bored until Wendy joined him. She sat up on the edge of the boat and let the wind whip through her pigtails.

Laxus enjoyed traveling with Wendy, because she was genuinely a sweet person. It was fairly rare in the magic world to meet 'sweet' girls of any variety because the magic world was so rough. Lucy was a defiant and rougher type, no matter how she looked on the outside.

"I love the fresh air," she said.

"I miss land already. Once this job is over, I'm never leaving Ishgar again. I might not even leave Fiore. Maybe I'll just stay within the city limits of Magnolia," he answered.

Wendy laughed until she saw the smoke. "What happened?"

"Another country attacked right after we left," he explained.

Wendy was confused but she trusted him, and she trusted Lucy. "I'm glad Lucy got us out. I can see why you guys get along. You're both so smart and so strong. Someday, I'll be too."

Laxus nodded. "You'll grow a lot over the next few years. You have a lot of advantages, being this young and to have come as far as you have."

The girl nodded and sighed wistfully. "I was sad to leave Romeo. We were going to go on a mission together."

"Just the two of you?"

She blushed. "Is that bad?"

His expression soured. "Do you honestly want my opinion? I'm not really someone who can or should give advice about relationships."

Wendy nodded. "Forgive me if this is too bold, but I'm not just trying to be a cute little girl. I want to be strong just like anybody else does. You've made it a long way on a path I'm trying to walk."

Laxus thought carefully, trying to arrange his words in proper order. He had an opinion on this subject, but he didn't want to say it in a way that was inappropriate for her or difficult to digest. "You're a little woman, right? Really sweet, and pretty cute. Romeo is a thirteen-year-old boy. At that age, all I wanted to do was fight and find out what I had to do to get a girl to let me touch her breasts."

"Guys are really that bad?"

"Of course we are."

Wendy looked down at her flat chest. "I don't really have...I'm not really..."

Laxus put his hand on top of her head. "You're a really cute kid. You're going to be gorgeous woman someday when you finish growing up."

This made her feel infinitely better about a lot of things. "I think sometimes I should just focus on magic."

"Probably a good idea. I don't really know, but I feel when I was your age, powerful guys and girls were roughly the same in number but as we grew up, relationships messed up a lot of women along the way. They get heartbroken and can't focus, or they lose confidence in themselves, or they change their priorities, or they get pregnant. It's harder for a woman to make it to the top," he answered.

Wendy thought about it and realized this was probably true. Who even knew it would be so enlightening to talk about boys with Laxus? She could tell he had a pretty negative opinion of her dating, like a real big brother. This made her almost gleefully happy as they sat on the edge of the ship bound for a foreign land.

Lucy got up long after the smoke plume was out of sight and Wendy was with the ship's doctor learning about all the strange foreign medicines. She was naturally one of the most curious people in the world, and since they were on the ship, Laxus let her roam freely.

When Lucy joined him, he leaned against the edge of the ship. "So we're kind of fucked."

"We are?" She wrapped an arm around his.

"The nations of Parisa and Indus are having a war involving wizards on their continent. Parisa was occupied for a long time but their wizards have instigated a war. Indus has four very powerful wizards that have been wrecking Parisa," he explained.

"...four..."

"Yep, those four. That goddamned diamond was snatched by wizards who work for the nation of Indus, which means getting it is going to be a mess," he added.

Lucy frowned. "Why would a whole country steal this diamond and we don't even know what its useful for?"

Laxus leaned over the edge a little. "I don't know. I'm assuming at this point it can be used as a weapon. We're going to get into some nasty trouble getting involved in a war."

The blonde digested everything slowly and asked, "Is there gunpowder on this ship?"

"No. That's a strong smell. There's a scent I can't quite place, but it's not explosives."

"I think we need to know."

She grabbed his hand and they went to their room first, to shake any suspicious eyes even though there didn't appear to be any, and then descended into the belly of the ship.

Quietly and carefully, they sneaked into the cargo hold, and when Laxus didn't pick up any scents, he felt cautiously along the wall for a button to turn on the lights, which cast a dim glow across the massive compartment of the ship.

There was a lot of metal pipe-like parts to what was clearly some machine. Crates were everywhere with numbers, and there was a cube-like structure that occupied much of the left side of the cargo hold. There was massive crate without a lid that housed several large lacrimas.

Lucy approached the cube-like structure and looked at the runes on each of its sides. "These are runes for collecting and storing magic, probably in those lacrimas, which means those metal pipes are...this is a weapon. It collects ethernano, charges, and then..."

Laxus leaned on one of the pipes. "Lucy, this is a fucking Etherion Cannon."

So there they were, in the pit of a ship, with a weapon that could kill millions of people.

"We could destroy it," she whispered, "when we get to the shore. Sink the ship."

He shook his head. "What happens when Indus decides we're agents from Fiore and attacks our country? Or—and I guess this is the bigger question—where the fuck did they get an Etherion Cannon in the first place? That's something that came from our country."

XXX

King Garrett of Indus stared in utter dismay at his strike force, the offensive juggernauts of his civil war. A telegram came from Oceana from Parisan rebels, who were gloating because they had demolished the port and sunk all the ships, effectively cutting his supply line.

Not to mention he believed his super-secret Etherion Cannon, which cost more than he could ever admit to his constituents, was likely currently at the bottom of the ocean.

None of that was to be blamed on his Four Dragons.

No, this—this was their fault!

The giant yellow diamond that was supposed to help him quell the rebellion had a magic seal on it, and while Marin, his brilliant and knowledgeable consult to the world of magic, analyzed the seal, he felt no small amount of rage that they'd traveled halfway around the world and didn't realize none of them could activate it.

Then again, he _had_ given them instructions not to try...

Marin entered the throne room, walking past her three teammates. They'd been raised together, and on a good day, bad day, or sad day, they were her sister and brothers. She met Mikail's eyes and smirked a little to encourage him, because today was certainly a bad day.

They were all of Indi blood and had blue hair, and to the public, that was important. To the mass at large, the conflict was about race—'damn those filthy Parisans' was the general sentiment.

She knelt before the king in her white cloak and looked up through teal green eyes.

The king scowled. "...well? It's been a month. Give me some news that makes me not want to have you executed for wasting my time."

Marin stood and said, "The seal was made using a magic that doesn't exist here on our continent. It's called Celestial Spirit Summoning magic. The magic, which not difficult, is only effective when the caster is in possession of one of twelve Zodiac keys. At least eleven keys are currently in Fiore. One wizard, Yukino Agria, has two, another, Lucy Heartfilia, has nine, and the whereabouts of the last key are unknown. No one without a gold key would be able to break the seal."

"You're telling me that there are only two people in the entire world that can break this spell?"

"Yes. The person who cast the spell did so at the expense of her life, so it's likely a celestial wizard will have to die in order for the jewel to be unsealed."

Garrett looked down at her with eyes that looked and felt like pure ice. "Bring the one with the most keys here."

"She's part of the Fairy Tail guild, where the Four Dragons of Ishgar congregate. That's the organization that picked a fight with Alvarez and won, so we might want to tread lightly."

"And the other?"

"Yukino also has dragon slayers attached to her. Two rather than four, and honestly, not the most lethal."

"Get her. If it takes her death, war is about sacrifice, no?"

 _ **Please Review!**_

Special thanks to yumeyumi1986, Littlest1, boyceashlee, thefangirlingFanboy, Aryillia, Aviend, w1n6s-0f-f1r3, H.M. Akhlys, Flamey Owl, aoutre, adabs18, guest, xxshyxx, axltz, rachelkock82, rikary, 12rayne, katieboom, princekuruma, keelsxoxo, megumiyoung, thornado, katiekat2001, cosm0333, and dragonq for reviewing!


	13. Lucy Rage!

On the seventh day of the journey, chaos broke out on the ship.

Filmore, the first mate, and half of the crew, were Parisan rebels that had infiltrated as members of the Clandestine because it was the only ship big enough to transport the Etherion. Since he'd spoken to Laxus, and Laxus was ignorant about the affairs of the country, he politely informed the dragon slayer that they weren't ever going to arrive in Indus and after carefully considering all the options, Laxus agreed that it was acceptable to land in Parisa. He really had no choice at that point anyway.

As long as he got off the damn boat with his team, he wasn't sure if he minded anything and frankly, if there was a side to choose in the war, he'd have to go along with them anyway.

But on that evening, he got Lucy and Wendy and took them to their cabin, locking the door.

"What's going on?" Lucy asked.

Laxus cut his eyes toward the hallway when they heard a squish and a scream. "Parisan rebels are taking over the ship."

"A-Are they killing people?" Wendy asked.

He nodded. "These people are at war."

Wendy stared in horror at the door. "But...we should stop them."

Lucy grabbed onto her and held her while they listened to the chaos in the hallway.

On their second day of the journey, she'd summoned Crux and learned that the Parisan people had suffered untold horrors at the hands of their occupiers. Rapes and pillagings came standard, along with many wretched practices Lucy believed didn't exist anywhere anymore. Their homeland was dotted with countless mass graves filled with the bodies of men, women, and children indiscriminately.

Crux could not, however, divulge any information about the gem because he used to be contracted to Anna Heartfilia and it would breech their confidentiality.

They'd sat down after that, and had an honest discussion amongst themselves. It wasn't a fun adventure about a key anymore; it was a lot bigger than any of that. There was a concern that this jewel that had been stolen would lead to more large graves filled with small bodies.

Lucy held Wendy until the noise died out and there was a knock on the door letting them know the mayhem had ended.

XXX

Landfall in Parisa three days later was...

 _Upsetting_.

Everything was in ruins as they weren't far from the border. The conflict was largely centered in the now-ruined port near the Parisa-Indus border, and as they looked around, they realized the 'wars' they'd seen at home were nothing compared to what had happened here on the other side of the world.

There was almost nothing left standing above ground.

The ideal plan was to cross over the border and head for the capital in search of the wizards that had swiped the diamond, but it was already dark, and they hadn't been wandering around long on the land when deafening sirens rang out.

"Pssst!"

They looked down at a little boy. "This way!"

A bomb filled with shrapnel exploded almost a hundred years from them, and they watched pieces of metal fly almost as far as they were. Magic or no, it wasn't safe to move around with that. Laxus had confidence he could maneuver among them in lightning form, but the two women were at a bigger disadvantage, and if two bombs fell close together, it might become mathematically impossible to avoid getting injured.

"C'mon!" the boy called.

The little boy, whose name was Alvin, brought them to a basement under what had been a large family home at some point, and once they were inside, he pulled the metal door down and locked it carefully.

There were more than a few people there, and the underground hideout had been carved out of the ground over the years, until it had several compartments.

There were a lot of women and little kids, but of the group of twenty, there were no grown men. Several of the kids were mixed-race, suggesting they'd been the result of various war atrocities which only seemed more atrocious when one tried to estimate how young their mothers were.

The leader of the group was an old woman named Midna, who knew a few Ishgari words, and she directed everyone, rationing out food, making sure everyone had blankets to sleep, and trying to keep everyone calm.

Somehow, these people had been so overexposed to war they could sleep with the scream of bombs overhead, but the group of wizards was less than okay with what was going on. The ground rumbled now and then, and Lucy, Laxus, and Wendy wondered what the purpose of getting a jewel or an Etherion Cannon was. These people were literally on the very brink of ruin.

There was a head count at dusk and someone was missing. Alvin went up to find the others and Laxus followed him up, because really, there was no way a grown man could let a kid go up to the killing fields, whether or not it was their war.

Alvin was ten-years fierce, and he feared nothing. It was his job to keep the others safe, and Laxus walked with him as he climbed over rubble, flattening against a collapsed wall at the sound of a bomb's scream. Laxus wanted to ask him how in the hell he was so brave and so little, but the language gap stood between them.

At night, the old woman segregated everyone based on gender, and Laxus found himself sleeping on a mat in a room with a bunch of little boys, none of whom had fathers or hope of reaching adulthood. Most of them already had ugly injuries, scars, or disfigurements. He was so bothered by it, because he kept telling himself they couldn't get involved in this war, but what was going on was against everything he believed as a wizard.

It was arrogant to think three people could change a war that had been a hundred years in the making, but God, was there really nothing anyone could do? Laxus assumed drastic and terrible would probably happen to Indus when the Parisans got the Etherion Cannon working, and he decided as terrible as that particular weapon was, something terrible was very necessary.

Laxus watched Alvin work carefully to comfort and look after the others, speaking strange words of encouragement to the others before they went to bed. He looked a lot older than a ten-year-old, worn and stressed and worried, and as he closed his eyes to sleep, Laxus reached out and put his hand on the boy's head, ruffling his hair gently.

The commotion ended during the night, and in the morning, the kids went outside to 'play,' because they couldn't very well live their entire lives underground. They played pretend, pretending they were anywhere else in the whole world.

The three wizards emerged and looked forward to the smoke on the horizon and Laxus said, "We can probably cross the border. I can use lightning form to scout a good place. We'll leave as soon as I get back. It's probably a terrible idea to stay around here for long."

He stopped just before he turned and leaned his head on Lucy's for a minute, reaching out to put a hand on Wendy's head. "It'll be okay."

"Maybe for us," Lucy answered.

Lucy and Laxus were both filled with regret they'd brought Wendy, because she was seeing all kinds of things no kid should see. She looked like she'd break down into tears at any moment, but they were in a strange place and they had to keep it together to make it to the other side of the border.

Righteous indignation boiled in all of them, but they tried to keep their focus. The situation unfolding around them was huge, wretched, and not something that could be solved by anything they could do. At least, that's what they told themselves. They'd individually wondered what the cost would be if they plunged head-first into this war, because that's what felt right.

When Laxus returned after dusk, he had a neatly formulated plan to cross at a specific place under the cover of night, but just as he came in, two of the kids came in yelling something or another and the old woman said they'd run into Indi soldiers and Alvin had distracted them so the others could get away.

"I'll be right back," he told Wendy and Lucy, "and then we'll go."

He moved quickly to the scent, but his sharp hearing picked up on a strange, hollow metallic sound.

He was probably less than a second too late.

Laxus was close enough that the grenade left his ears ringing, but too far to have changed the outcome. Alvin crumbled into his hands, body full of shrapnel that had ripped its way into and in some places, completely through him. He had the most terrified look on his face, and Laxus could hear the erratic, adrenaline-powered poundings of his little heart.

His first thought was _Wendy_ , but this was far beyond magic. Laxus didn't want her to see it, because it was terrifyingly gruesome.

There was a gurgled scream—this was a terrible way to die for anyone.

His hand fisted in Laxus' shirt, and Laxus didn't know what to do.

As a wizard, he'd watched people die before. On a couple of occasions, he'd even killed them. But those were adults, who knowingly accepted risks, went to dangerous places, or involved themselves in poor situations. Even in Ishgar, things like this just didn't happen. The Balam Alliance perpetrated some viciousness against kids, and the Tower of Heaven was a wicked place, but humans didn't just kill babies in Ishgar for no reason.

So, he held this child and watched him die, listening to his heart stop beating while he tried to scream and writhe in agony, and when he was finally still, Laxus laid him gently on the ground and threw his cloak over him.

When he stood to his feet, he felt a thousand different emotions and didn't know what 999 of them were, but the one he did know, he knew well. He was angrier than he'd ever been in his entire life.

Somewhere behind him, there were soldiers laughing.

Laxus's head tilted slowly to the side, where a group of blue-haired Indi soldiers stood laughing. One of them made a jerk with his limbs, mocking the way the little boy had died.

They pointed rifles at him and made some demand in a language he didn't care to know.

He started to breathe hard as the other ninety-nine emotions seemed to vanish under the drive to satisfy a form of blood lust that definitely did not come from his human side at all. Scales formed on his cheeks and across his chest as the air started to crackle.

It was taboo to take life at Fairy Tail, but Laxus decided he'd deal with the consequences later. He was pretty sure if he just beat them up and left they'd be back. Besides, he could hardly treat such creatures like they were human anymore because humanity had been lost on them a very long time ago.

Laxus decided he was going to kill everybody, and he was okay with that.

The soldiers watched him transform and fired at him, but it was about one grenade too late to avoid drawing the wrath of the dragon slayer.

 _Crackle-crackle-_ _ **BOOM!**_

Lucy and Wendy heard the deafening lightning explosion and ran out to find Laxus had assumed lightning form and was speeding along the long, burnt field between them and the border.

The women knew something had gone so wrong, as they watched the man who had cautioned them against involving themselves in the war hit the front line with a vengeance. It was reckless and crazy, and Lucy could practically feel the air shaking from his rage. She'd seen him pissed, but never like this, and she was worried about him.

Lucy didn't understand what had happened between when he left and then. He was just going to find the little boy...

She turned to look for him, and a hand grabbed her wrist.

Loke held her in place. "Don't."

"Where's the boy?"

"He's dead."

Lucy and Wendy were from the world of Fairy Tail, where no one really died for good. "Maybe we..."

" _ **Dead**_ ," Loke repeated, "and not coming back."

Wendy could smell the blood in the air, along with the burnt flesh nearby, but she didn't have the nerve to look at it. "I can't take it anymore. I want to fight. I don't care if it doesn't make a difference. I don't even think I care if I ever make it back. I just...want this stop."

Lucy nodded and reached for her hand, squeezing it tightly. "Me too. So let's fight."

XXX

At the center of the opulent capital city in a lavish castle three weeks later, King Garrett was enjoying a meal that included the best of steaks and the finest of wines with his queen. He was trying his best to remain calm, but one of his generals was late delivering a report. Generally the news on the northern from with Parisa rarely changed. It was blood and mayhem every day of the week, and somehow that hadn't changed even when the enemy started to run low on fighters and resources.

"What is it, dear?"

He sipped his wine and looked up at his queen with no small amount of distaste. Political marriages were the sharpest downside to being born into the seat of a tyrant, but he was doing his best. Halis offered her as part of their Etherion and gunpowder deal, but now he believed the Etherion to be at the bottom of the ocean and had a wife he truly couldn't stand.

"I'm convinced those rodents in Parisa would rather starve in their pathetic little holes than just come out and make nice. I'm a gracious king," he said.

The blonde asked, "Why don't you let them go? There's nothing in Parisa for you to want anymore."

He smirked at her. "If Parisa wins, other people will rise. I'm not dealing with this. I have goals and ambitions. If I can't get my kingdom in order, how will I build my empire?"

He knew she thought he was a monster. Sometimes when he touched her, she'd make the most disgusted face, and he enjoyed that somehow.

His general appeared in the door, and the king abruptly stood up and followed him out to the strategy room with his wine in hand. The room was filled with papers and plans and a chalkboard that showed the forces he had assaulting Parisa.

The king tossed his wine around in the glass. "Has the communication problem with the front line been fixed?"

General Lock, an older man who had overseen the Parisan occupation and later rebellion since his youth, answered, "We thought there was a communication breakdown in the telegraph lines. The lines were broken, but that wasn't the problem."

"What's the problem then?"

"There is no front line."

The king looked up. "What do you mean?"

The general pointed to a chalkboard that showed the skirmish in the north. "In the north, we had a line pushing north two miles south of the border, with patrols sweeping upward. There was a supply depot ten miles from there, where approximately one-fourth of our bombs were being held for the next campaign. There were thirty-six tons of explosives there."

"...were..."

The general drew a line with the chalk. "Everything above this line is gone. Troops, supplies, tanks, warehouses, bunkers, a couple of forts... _everything_. We're missing all our bridges and half of the roads. Port Carla...even the rocks that make up the port are gone—we might never get that back. It'll take months to get resources back so we can attack at full force again."

In a dazed state of disbelief, the king asked, "What...what happened?"

"Wizards. We don't know who they are, where they came from, or how many there are. They obscure the battlefield with wind and sand and then strike, so it's impossible to tell. One of them uses lightning. There's some kind of wind magic. They haven't struck in three days, so we're not sure where they are right now."

The king narrowed his eyes. "That's nonsense. Parisa doesn't have that wizards like that."

The general said, "It's possible they hired wizards from another nation."

"That's absurd. What are they going to say? 'Come fight our pathetic war that cannot be won and we'll pay you nothing?' Wizards are prats for hire, but I'm not too concerned. ]Let me show you something."

They descended into the basement, to a room covered in runes, where a giant yellow diamond was suspended in the center of the room. Yukino was crumbled on the ground in her underwear, signs of torture evident on her. Her hands were bound in cuffs that were chained to the ceiling.

The white-haired wizard numbly looked up.

Yukino had been assaulted with lightning not far from Sabertooth and taken by magical ship to a distant continent. The only people who could speak Ishgari were the king and Hera, her keeper and torturer. She didn't know if anyone knew where she was, or if she'd ever get to go home. Of course, they knew she was gone by now, but had there been any clues? How would they even know where to look for her?

In the part of her mind that wasn't on the verge of crazy, she knew she hadn't been there that long—probably only days—but a few days of torture was like several eternities neatly lined up after one another, each one promising a different form of endless suffering.

She hadn't seen her keys since they snatched her, and told her she could go if she would break the seal on the diamond, but she knew the people surrounding her were purely evil.

"Little bitch is stubborn," the king said, "but she'll give in eventually. And when she does, this is our answer. It was supposed to be used to fire the Etherion Cannon continuously, but there are other ways to weaponize it. The war ends when we have this. All wars, really. I can build my empire as I see fit without pointless little border skirmishes."

Hera entered, red eyes a glitter. "King, I apologize for the mess. Do you want me to clean her up?"

The king waved off her concern. "You can take her back to her cell for now. Her friends aren't coming for her. We have time to break her poor little pretty spirit."

It was cold in the cell where Yukino was taken and she wanted to go home more than anything in the world. She truthfully didn't understand what was happening, but she knew that the king of Indus was evil, and he had some kind of weapon. Nothing else made sense.

More than anything, she was afraid she'd die there, in a strange place, and no one would ever know what had happened to her.

XXX

Wendy looked around the capital when they arrived that night and found it was the most beautiful city she'd ever seen in her life. There were no doubts in anyone's mind that the Indi people were her race, but she wouldn't dare associate with them as they moved about in their shameless wealth casting an apathetic shade to the devastation taking place in their country.

At least, they thought the sin was apathy. It was really something quite worse. The general population really supported the war with Parisa and the ethnic cleansing, as if the horrors going on were 'good' for the country.

For this reason, Wendy didn't regret that their path to the capital had been one of sheer, unapologetic destruction.

Witnessing the horrors of a real war had taken a toll on all of them. When they'd been dead set on not getting involved in the war itself, it had been unbearable, and she felt like her heart was slowly dying inside of her, but once they started fighting, it became better.

She didn't _feel_ like a little girl anymore.

She'd blown up bomb caches and tanks and boxes of grenades and even a factory where they make those things. There were times she wondered why Indus would even bomb people who weren't fighting back, but in some ways, it didn't even matter.

If nothing else, they'd cleared the war away from Parisa for a little while. So maybe those kids could come out in the sun for a little while.

In the capital, no one knew they were responsible for the mayhem, so they got a hotel suite with two bedrooms and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, she was able to take a hot shower.

Somewhere between this and that, she'd started her period as if her whole self was aligning with her abrupt departure from youth.

Once she'd finished bathing, she stood in front of the mirror with a pair of scissors she'd packed in her bag and she cut her hair off at the shoulders.

Wendy had her own little room in the suite, with a big fluffy bed and clean sheets. In her pajamas, she settled under the soft sheets and she felt so comfortable in her body yet so uncomfortable in her spirit. It was hard to believe this was still technically the same country where kids lived underground to hide from bombs. Her belly was full of delicious food but there was a part of her that wanted to break more stuff until maybe, those kids had a chance to have some kind of a life.

But wars were tiring and she was still so young, so sleep overtook her quickly.

In the other bedroom of the suite, Laxus and Lucy were locked in the most intimate of embraces. They'd never separated as a team for practically anything, so they hadn't so much as touched one another since they left Fiore except for a round of reckless, unprotected, rough sex while Wendy was sleeping on the first night they'd blitzed through the enemy's front line.

Lucy held him close as his hips moved probably a little harder than she would have liked, but Laxus was not okay. He was hurt on some very deep level, and the only way that he knew how to deal with it was by tearing a path of vengeance across the country, which he'd done quite well. He hadn't explained what happened, but the kid had died and Laxus had lost his temper in a new and terrifying way that made Natsu's temper seem docile in comparison.

As he got more tired, Laxus slowed down, became a little more gentle, and made love to her the way he knew he was supposed to. Because truthfully, he felt like she kept him anchored to reality. She still loved him even though he'd manifested this terrible side and she'd seen it as it was.

When the finally finished, he rested his head on her chest and she ran her fingers through his hair while he listened to her heartbeat. He told her what happened in whispers and then he laid still for a long time.

He felt like his whole perspective on life had shifted, but this job was having an incalculable and profound impact on all of them.

"So that's why I've been acting like a monster," he said as shifted to sit back and looked down at her.

Lucy never in a thousand years would have imagined they'd find themselves in the position they were in. It was just supposed to be an adventure, but looking back, there had been warning signs, and they didn't pay any of them attention. No one warned her that if they took this job they'd end up in over their heads in a senseless, cruel war.

Yet, none of them had any regrets. They could turn back and go home at any time, but they were all still right there.

She reached up and put her hand on his face. "You might be acting like a monster, but I doubt you've ever felt so human in your life," she whispered.

Laxus wondered if she even knew she was his lifeline.

She did, and for that reason, she held him close and she didn't offer any judgments or criticisms. She only loved him and comforted him, and watched as he slowly seemed to come back to reality.

"We could have a kid," he said.

Lucy kissed him gently. She was pretty sure he was talking complete nonsense because he was crazy out of his mind with grief and didn't have the emotional bandwidth to process it, but she wasn't about to tell him that. Instead, she held him close and said, "If that's what you want someday."

"Would you?"

"Would I what?"

"Stay with me."

"I already am, Laxus."

He fell asleep in her arms, and slept like a baby for the first time since that day.

They were still asleep when there was a knock on the door to their room and Wendy went to the door and opened it, assuming it was the breakfast she'd ordered.

"Fancy meeting a fellow Fiorian here in hell," Minerva said.

Wendy was shocked beyond all belief, but opened the door. "Come in."

They'd made the journey across the ocean via the Blue Pegasus' prized ship, the Christina, at the behest of Libra, Yukino's only spirit that could open her own gate.

Sting sat down on the sofa in the living room of their suite. "Imagine our surprise to pick up familiar scents here in this godforsaken place. So what the fuck is Fairy Tail doing in Indus?"

Wendy started at the beginning, and told them everything that happened.

They listened to everything that the young wizard told them about the nation that had taken Yukino, about the things the government did to its people, about dead kids and mass graves, and violent struggles in futility that had caused them to divert from their original purpose to wreck the Indi forces.

Each of them felt similar feelings—these things don't happen in Ishgar—and their rage against the kingdom grew.

When Laxus woke up, he opened his eyes and sniffed the air in confusion. There were strange scents that belonged on the other side of the world in their hotel room, so he assumed he was dreaming at first, but when he dressed and stepped out of the bedroom, there were several Sabertooth members, drinking coffee with Wendy, who had evidently lopped all her hair off.

Minerva smirked at him. "We all all here to raise hell. We might as well do it together."

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	14. Lucy Taken!

The safe house was a home two miles outside of Indus City that belonged to a wealthy couple who vacationed to the warmer southern part of the large nation during the colder winter months. Fully-furnished but vacant, it made for a perfect hiding place, and the woods around gave them a break zone where, if followed, they had a space to lose any pursuers when they executed their plan.

Minerva's presence was so welcome Laxus stopped just short of wanting to tell her she was incredible. His strategy skills involved being able to predict how a person or small group might think or act. As a wizard, he knew a lot about how wizards thought and behaved. But Minerva hadn't been named after an ancient god of war strategy for no reason. She was brilliant, and she knew both about the magic of the people in their group and about the military.

Due to violent winter storms, one of which was due to strike within the next forty-eight hours, the king wintered much of the navy in one of three ports, and the largest was only twenty miles from the capital. In response to Team Lucy's renegade assault on the military between the capital city and Parisa, the biggest, most powerful ships had been moved to winter in the port closest to the king, _just in case_.

Indus stretched from one ocean to the other, east to west. Parisa was to the north. Some other equally ravaged occupied nation was southward. The army was their threat, but the real might of Indus was the navy, which helped keep other nations from condemning the insanity that happened on the continent.

Their plan was two-pronged. They'd split into two teams and hit the castle and the port hard and sink all the ships because they represented a majority of the strength of the nation's navy. Without them, Indus had little strength as an international power, separated from most of the rest of the world.

This would also do incalculable economic damage due to the sheer cost of the ships that were about to find their way to the bottom of the ocean.

The other team would hit the castle, the source of Yukino's scent. Rogue-capable of skulking in the shadows even in a castle full of people-had discovered Yukino was in the dungeon, and the diamond that had instigated this entire debacle was on the top floor.

The plan was awaiting an approaching storm, because the winter storms in Indus were unlike anything that happened on their side of the world. During their southward push, they discovered that Wendy had grown enough in her power and reached some physical maturity level where she was able to dominate the sky. If the sky was peaceful, that wasn't particularly noteworthy, but in a big storm Wendy's powers shifted from the realm of 'cute' to 'fucking terrifying.'

On Rogue's last scouting missing a two days before the teams broke apart to strike, he brought something back with him: a worn out old diary written in Ishgari.

"The king was reading from this earlier and talking about the diamond and Yukino. Apparently the diamond has some seal on it and a celestial wizard is needed to break it," he said.

Lucy took it and gave it a cursory examination. The language was old, but she was smart enough to interpret it easily. "This is Anna Heartfilia's diary. How did it get all the way over here?"

"I've seen that book before," Laxus answered.

She held it up. "This book. You've seen this book that ended up on the other side of the world and caused all this trouble…"

"Ivan had it. Ivan went out of the country and no one ever knew what he did or where he went. It was in his house during the brief time," Laxus said.

Minerva asked, "Ivan as in...your father?"

"If that's what you want to call him."

Lucy pursed her lips together tentatively. "I wonder if he sold it or what he got for this."

Laxus made a rather disgusted face and said, "I would be willing to bet my own skin that he's the reason Fiore is tangled up in this mess."

Even though the lightning dragon slayer had a calm appearance, his blood was nearly boiling in his veins at the idea that his own flesh and blood had set all this into motion. He was disgusted and angry, yet at the same time, not at all surprised. And, he wondered if all this had anything to do with Makarov's decision to expel Ivan from the guild.

Then, Laxus remembered his father had a blue-haired woman with a strange accent who came and went from his life at various times. Makarov despised her, and that was always perplexing because Makarov really didn't hate many people. Laxus had always just thought of her as an unremarkable loose woman.

But, he knew her scent and he knew her name.

So, when the group meeting broke apart, Laxus found the huge white book that had names and addresses he could not read and carried it to Wendy's room because the longer they spent in Indus, the more she remembered how to speak and read their language.

"Caroline Taggert. Is she in this book?"

Wendy took the city directory and mentally translated the syllables to symbols and then flipped through the book. She didn't ask him any questions, because she was honestly having her own problems with reconciling who she was with all that had happened.

"1445 W. Knoll St."

Laxus went upstairs to where Lucy was starting to comb through the diary. "Do you want to go into the capital with me?"

"Why are going?" she asked.

"My dad's old girlfriend lives there."

Lucy nodded, knowing if he asked, he wanted her to be there with him. The circumstances were awful, but they were starting to get to know one another well. They didn't really talk about themselves or their relationship, as this wasn't the time or the place. All she knew is that she would follow him into hell, and so that's where they were, but they were there together.

Soon they would be home, and then they could talk about them. For now, everything was about the mission.

There was a frustrated sense of darkness and disappointment in his eyes because the chaos suddenly involved his family, so between pulling on knit caps to protect from the cold and hide their scandalously blond hair, she wrapped her arms around him and held him tight.

For a minute, he didn't move, and then let out a breath he didn't know he was holding as he relaxed his tense body to embrace her back. Laxus leaned down and rested his forehead against hers, basking in the comfort of her embrace.

She took his hands in hers and kissed him gently.

Moments like this made the burden they'd chosen to pick up somehow easier to carry.

Laxus decided as soon as they got home he was going to find some way to convince her to stay with him forever. Their souls were tangled together in a deep and meaningful way, and he never wanted to untangle. There were moments where he entertained the idea of asking her to elope with him, and he believed she probably would.

They snuck through the woods to the edge of the city, and then followed a map Wendy had marked up for them until they arrived walked up to a stretch of townhouses that faced a park where a few kids were having a snowball fight.

Several of the kids were gathered around another kicking and shouting and slinking bloody snow at him. Language gap or no, it was pretty obvious they were ganged up on some kid and were beating him senseless.

Lucy separated from his side as they walked down the sidewalk and shouted in Ishgari, which couldn't have been more conspicuous or more dangerous.

Laxus put his hand over her mouth. "We don't want people to know we're foreigners with everything going on. They're practically looking for spies," he whispered.

The kids scattered and left their victim in the snow.

The lightning dragon slayers nose twitched visibly as the little boy sat up in the snow, holding his hand over a bloody nose as he coughed weakly, struggling to breathe. Laxus felt bad for him, because he remembered being sick just like that as a child, and for that matter, he'd been a scrawny kid too. A scrawny kid with weird eyebrows and blue eyes.

The world all but spun on its axis in Laxus' world as he reached up and pulled the knit cap off the boy, revealing a head of spiky, wild blond hair.

"Shit," Laxus whispered.

The boy stared at him intently, feeling a connection he didn't understand because he didn't have dragon senses and he didn't know the sordid story of their family.

Lucy put the pieces together easily because the boy looked so much like the pictures of Laxus when he was young. "What's your name? Can you understand us?"

He nodded. "Nikki Taggert. I'm thirteen. My mom taught me. She said my father is from Ishgar. She was going to send me to stay with him, but then she decided not to because I'm sick."

Laxus knew the dark circles under his eyes well as well as the labored breathing and the apparent weakness in his limbs. "Were you born with a hole in your heart?"

"H-How do you know that?" he asked fearfully.

"I was too. I wasn't supposed to live to be your age," the elder answered.

The boy sheepishly tried to laugh off his own mortality. "Me neither. But it's not so bad. It hasn't been that great anyway."

Lucy squeezed her boyfriend's hand tightly. "Were those boys hitting you because you're not a pure blood Indi?"

"That's how it works here," Nikki answered.

Lucy and Laxus walked him to his door across the street, and the blonde made sure never to let her boyfriend's hand go. If she was stunned to the point of disbelief, she couldn't imagine how he felt, or if he felt anything at all. For better or worse, the man she loved could cherish and disavow blood relations as it seemed to suit him although she knew he'd developed a tough skin toward Ivan through countless hurts.

The boy opened the door. "You want to come in and warm up for a minute? We have cocoa."

"That sounds nice," Lucy said.

Once inside, Laxus cleaned up Nikki's bloody nose and busted lip with the first aid kit, looking pensive and tense. Lucy was probably better at these things, but he felt a strange sense of obligation toward him and he wasn't sure why. It wasn't his kid, after all.

"I'm really okay. These kind of things happens to me all the time," Nikki said.

They sat at the kitchen table and watched Nikki as he made three cups of cocoa. He was a nice kid, but every time he came close to Laxus, Laxus could hear the disgusting squish of an overworked heart that was overdue to give out. It was surreal, to meet a little brother and in the same moment, know he was going to drop dead fairly soon due to a defect from which Laxus had been spared.

Then to top it off, he'd spent the years in a country where he was hated just for how he was born.

Lucy caught him in an unguarded moment with the most miserable expression.

His mother came home and entered the kitchen as her son told her some nice Ishgari strangers, and upon entering the kitchen, recognized Laxus in an instant.

Caroline froze. "Laxus…"

Laxus sipped his cocoa.

The woman told her son to go to his room for a while, and he dutifully obeyed, leaving the three adults in the kitchen.

Caroline stood in silence for awhile.

Laxus asked, "Is that Ivan's kid?"

Knowing well that Ivan's oldest and most complicated had a plethora of issues concerning his father, she answered, "He's your brother."

"Does Ivan know?"

"Look, Laxus, and...I guess this woman is in your guild too, I wrote to Ivan after he was born and asked him if he would raise the baby, but I never heard from him again after that. Then I thought I'd raise him until he was old enough to take care of himself and send him to Fiore to find his own way, but then I found out he wasn't going to live very long," she explained.

Laxus crossed arms. "That really seems like a lot of bullshit to me."

Caroline said, "It doesn't matter how you perceive it. It's not good for you to be here, since I'm certain you're involved in that dust-up that happened in the north."

"Tell us everything and we're gone," the dragon slayer said.

The woman had-in her youth-been an irresponsible and selfish treasure hunter. Raising a son with a birth defect that would kill him had changed quite a lot, and so she sat and told them how she'd gone to Fiore looking for some legendary source of energy and had crossed paths with Ivan who was also seeking power.

Ivan introduced her to Wolfheim, a wizard saint, and current Council member who was for all practical purposes 'for sale.' And when she decided her adventure in Fiore was over, she stole four dragon lacrimas and the diary from Ivan and went home, where the government seized all her assets and questioned her for espionage. She disclosed Wolfheim's information to the king.

Laxus assumed this connect between the king and a council member was likely to blame for the fact there was an Etherion on this continent, even if it had fallen into Parisa's hands.

Ivan chased her Indus to get the lacrimas back, and upon hearing they'd been taken by the government, gave up and stayed with her for a while before returning home. Nine months later, she had a baby.

The two wizards listened intently, and Lucy watched Laxus carefully as he took it all in. It was a relief that Ivan wasn't really a willing participant with the horrors of Indus. Worst case scenario, he'd been played for a fool.

As promised, once Caroline explained, they left, and Laxus looked up to an upstairs window and saw the boy watching them go. He waved, and Laxus turned quickly.

Lucy waited until they were a block away. "Are you okay?"

"He's going to die soon."

That was all Laxus said about any of it.

He was pensive and quiet for the rest of the night, but with everything that happened, they all had moments where things seemed okay, and moments where things most definitely were not. The Sabertooth wizards hadn't quite witnessed the horrors the Fairy Tail wizards had, but they'd seen enough to gladly join in their revolution.

They went over the plan again, this time with respect to the fact they now knew the Four Dragons of Indus were actually dragon slayers. That did change the game a little, and it heightened the risks. The capital city was stacked with military strength, weapons, and they really didn't know where the four dragon slayers would be when they struck. They might all be in the castle, although everyone agreed there would probably be at least one at the port.

There was an uncomfortable discussion about the Four Dragons of Indus, because outside of them, there was no real magic in the country. They used their fierce magic to murder en masse and to control people through fear and violence. Wizards fought wizards; it was strange for any of them to imagine turning their powers on ordinary, fragile people.

Generally speaking, only dragon slayers posed a decent threat to other dragon slayers, which means left alone and unopposed, those horrors would continue when they left.

"I don't mean to sound like a bitch-although I don't mind if I do-but it would make the most sense if we get rid of them and take the lacrima back to Fiore. It would be naive to suggest the Ishgar way of beating the living hell out of someone and trying to help them see the error of their ways will work," Minerva suggested.

Lucy nodded. "They'll get up and start right back at it. This whole culture is just poisoned."

Sting and Rogue had bloodied their hands once in a battle where they weren't given a choice except to kill, so they didn't take it lightly. It was a terrible situation, but they were in some crazy land where everything was wrong and terrible things happened. The people didn't care; they kept shopping, kept up their senseless castle-town gossip. It was like the people wanted to talk about everything except what mattered.

But if they could do something to stop someone from killing innocent people, then it seemed irresponsible to walk away and hope for the best.

XXX

At the castle two days later, King Garrett was overseeing preparations to brace for the storm, which was going to hit the port that night, and then blow into capital. Since he still didn't know who was responsible for wiping out his forces in the north, he assumed a frontal attack from a country might be eminent and moved the majority of his naval forces to protect the biggest and most important port, which controlled trade and provided a massive amount of the wealth to the nearby capital city.

There hadn't been an attack in almost two weeks, and everyone was perplexed. His greatest advisers were at a loss.

Mikail, the leader of his four dragons, entered his throne room with a somewhat serious expression on his face. "Your Majesty, the rebel forces in Parisa just sent a telegram."

"Oh?"

"They have the Etherion. Assembled. They're going to fire on the capital in six hours. Then the port in Silica six hours after that, then six hours later, Vanderfield, and finally the military headquarters in Emerald Valley. I've ordered an emergency total evacuation of the city starting in fifteen minutes," he announced.

The king felt like his world fell apart in four words.

He wasn't ignorant to the deep hatred and resentment he'd fostered in the north and was certain that if they'd ever had the chance, the Parisans would share their misery with the blindly high-minded socialites of the capital.

Even the king knew they'd care less about fashion and more about what was happening if it was their homes and their lives that were wrecked by the carnage of war.

That's was ignoring the nearly incalculable economic ruin that was going to accompany the destruction of the two largest cities, the military's headquarters, and the other major port. Indus City and Vanderfield represented two of the richest cities in his nation. The port in Silica was where much of the rest of the navy and dozens of trade ships were wintering. All the gunpowder and bombs were stored in Emerald Valley.

No matter how he tried to look at it, they were screwed.

Garrett asked, "Evacuating that many people? Where am I going to put them? That's almost fifteen percent of the nation's population. Homeless. That's ignoring that all the gold is stored under this city. There's no way we could even move it within six hours."

Mikail tried not to show his disappointment that his king was more concerned about the gold than the people. "Your Majesty, if the Parisans have the Etherion, why don't you concede their territory to them? It might save this country."

The king looked at him as if he was a traitor. "Mikail, have you ever seen me surrender? The four of you are going to go to Parisa, find the Etherion, and destroy it. I'm not a man who concedes. I'll win. I don't care what I have to give up."

Hera entered the throne room. "The ships at Indi Port are under attack. Marin and Gauge are on their way."

The king exclaimed, "I don't want them there. Everyone. Parisa. NOW! And when you get the Etherion dismantled, I want you to send a message to the dissidents in the south. Kill everyone in the north."

He paced across the floor and growled a curse, and Mikail heard the slightest sound as Minerva used her territory magic to enter the throne room.

By the time they turned around, Minerva was sitting on the throne with her legs crossed. "Hello, boys," she said with a smirk, "and whatever you think you are," she said to the red-eyed Hera.

"Ishgari," the king spoke in her language, "Destroy her, Mikail."

Rogue slipped from the shadows and landed beside Minerva. He'd heard the announcement that the whole city-probably also including the safe house-were going to be rubble very soon in all likelihood due to the Etherion, and as soldiers poured out into the streets to contend with the evacuation, all eyes were above, and outward.

The top floor exploded in violence, which was somewhat of a smokescreen for Lucy, who used used Taurus to rip a grate off a dungeon window before the two slipped inside. The bull cleared the hallway with his axe and they arrived at a staircase as sirens for the evacuation started.

The proudest, most corrupt, richest city she'd ever known descended into chaos, panic, and violence, and she flattened against a dark wall as soldiers from the dungeon rushed upward.

"Loke."

The lion spirit appeared at her side. "Can you sense the location of Yukino's keys?"

"I'll get them and catch up with you."

"Thank you."

She could hear fighting above that was shaking the opulent palace and knocked one of the guards to the ground as he rushed upward from the dark underbelly of the dungeon.

Lucy grabbed his keys and Taurus knocked the guard unconscious.

Sting caught up with her, hiding with her in the shadows. "We have a clear path of escape. The whole city is going to hell out there."

They descended deeper into the dungeon, and then deeper still as Sting followed Yukino's scent. For both of them, the sheer magnitude of the castle's underbelly was reason enough to despise the monarchy.

Sting's dragon senses were lit with indignation. Death had soaked into the ancient bricks, along with blood, gore, and all kinds of smells left behind by human suffering. If there was another place like this one anywhere in the world, he never wanted to enter it.

And in the deepest, darkest, scariest place of all, Yukino lay naked, bruised, and broken on the floor.

Lucy fumbled with the guard's keys, but this was unnecessary.

Sting ripped the door off the hinges and dove down next to his guild mate. "Yukino…"

He slipped his coat off and he gave it to Lucy. "Will you?"

Lucy nodded and helped lift her body so they could get the coat on her, but her body was so weak. There were bruises, cuts, scrapes, burn marks, signs she'd been electrocuted, and even what looked like the beginnings of frostbite on one of her feet.

Her eyes opened slowly and the first thing she saw was Sting's face. "Sting, is it you?"

The blond-headed man nodded and kissed her on the lips. "I'm here. Everything is okay. We're going to go home, okay? You're safe."

She weakly reached up to his face. "You idiot...risking so much...coming all the way here…"

"Don't be silly, Yukino. No one can take you from me," he quietly said.

Lucy realized the warmth in his eyes and the love in hers meant she wasn't the only celestial wizard that had found love in the arms of a somewhat awkward but strong blond-haired dragon slayer.

Sting lifted her gently in his arms.

Loke entered the cell with Yukino's keys. "Lady Minerva and Rogue are somewhat unsuccessful in their battle upstairs. There are two dragon slayers. One is a fire dragon slayer...a woman. She might go down, but the leader is up there and he's very strong. Maybe on the same level as Laxus. He's on his way down here."

Since no one on their team had the ability to defeat Laxus, and their entire team together might not have that might, Lucy tried to think fast.

Their sole priority was to save Yukino. If they were able to get the diamond, that was fine and good, but if they could save Yukino and get out, that was just as well. Lucy could honestly care less about the job itself, and she knew that Aquarius would understand that the situation was simply too big for her.

Lucy thought as fast as she could about everything and knew a straight victory was probably going to come at a huge cost if possible at all. "Sting, take her to the checkpoint."

She summoned Gemini, sent Taurus home, and asked Gemini to copy Yukino. "This will keep him from following you. So go."

"I can't leave you to fight."

"I can't carry Yukino. Besides, if you are followed, dragon slayers can move really fast when they need to, so _**go**_. You are wasting time, Sting," she ordered.

Sting nodded, threw her over his shoulder, and ran as fast as he could, slipping through the window just a few seconds before Mikail entered the dungeon. The wizards upstairs bore the mark of the Sabertooth guild, so he knew that somewhere in the underbelly of the palace, they were trying to help Yukino escape.

Gemini took on the role of Yukino, and Lucy pretended to help her up the stairs.

Lucy and Gemini looked at one another and nodded. They split up and ran up separate staircases that went to unknown parts of the castle.

Mikail heard the footsteps above and looked up with icy silver eyes toward the ceiling. His gaze passed the window they'd broken in through, and briefly, his senses were confused because it smelled like Yukino had left, and yet, she hadn't.

He went back upstairs and chased Gemini halfway through the first floor of the castle, at which point he grew a little suspicious. He dismissed his doubts as Lucy quietly trailed them and tried to come up with a plan.

Gemini ran into a dead end and turned to face the dragon slayer.

Mikail was so infuriated he didn't even care anymore. He gave Gemini a jolt that probably would have killed Yukino and Gemini vanished into a cloud of golden dust, headed back to the Celestial Realm.

Outside, Sting made it past a building that served as the armory and blew it up in passing, filling the air with the smell of several tons of spent gunpowder as a plume of fire and smoke rose against the night sky.

That scent hid every other scent and guaranteed they wouldn't be followed.

Mikail narrowed his eyes and turned to pursue the real Yukino, but Leo stood before him. "

You smell like the others. Celestial spirits - that's interesting."

"I think it's interesting you can speak in Ishgari. You're living with borrowed strength," Loke said, pushing his glasses up on his nose.

Mikail recognized Loke, because as Loke pointed out, they knew about Fiore but Fiore as a whole had never paid Indus much attention. When they'd kidnapped Yukino, he picked up a copy of Sorcerer's Weekly that featured Lucy on the front cover on the heels of Fairy Thunder's devastating win in the Grand Magic Games. The article featured a few photographs of her fighting with her spirits, including the one before him.

That meant the other celestial wizard was not only separated from her guild, she was probably in the castle somewhere. He didn't know why Lucy Heartfilia might be on Indi soil, but he had a lot of his own reasons for wanting to capture her.

"Where is your master?" he asked.

Lucy had climbed all the way up a winding staircase that cornered around the cavernous central room of the south wing and was standing on the sixth floor, taking aim from directly above him.

She put a great deal of her magic into this one arrow and let it fly to its mark, where it hit and caused an explosion that blasted the railings down, causing her to crash to the main floor.

Soldiers rushed in as Mikail stood up with defiance and anger flashing in his eyes. "I don't need any assistance. Go upstairs and assist Hera."

He zapped Loke and sent him back to the Celestial Realm.

He came at Lucy so fast and so hard that when he struck, she crumbled to the ground, unconscious.

Mikail threw Lucy over his shoulder and watched the soldiers race to assist Hera. As the leader and most trusted dog of the king, he made calculated decisions, and at present, the capital was gone, Hera was already near death, and the best leverage he could hope to gain was currently in his possession.

He left Hera to die, knowing he could have saved her, but it might have cost him Lucy Heartfilia.

Upstairs, even as he decided to let Hera die, the red-eyed woman was waiting for him to save her.

She was fierce, but she was a fire dragon slayer and unfortunately for her, she was nothing compared to Natsu. Rogue had known flames so hot he felt they'd melt his bones in his body. He had experience and he knew well how to fight with fire.

It had been a rough fight until Mikail left them to pursue Yukino, but once they had her alone, they'd systematically broken her spirit and her resolve in tandem with her body until she coudln't get up anymore.

Minerva took a dagger and looked heartlessly into Hera's eyes.

Hera knew well that she'd been cruel, and that she'd enjoyed taking the lives of others and causing pain. There were no rules for them in Indus, and they were monsters, each of them. Mikail was probably the worst because of _what_ he enjoyed doing, but never in her life did she imagine she'd be judged.

It went even a little deeper than that. She envisioned herself a confident, vicious, cruel woman.

Minerva was everything she thought she wanted to be.

Rogue looked away as Hera died, coughing and choking on blood.

The dragon lacrima forced itself from her body when she coughed and it rolled across the floor to his feet.

The shadow dragon slayer picked it up and marvelled at how much destruction had been caused by such a tiny thing.

When Minerva looked out at the city, there was indescribable chaos, but the inside of the castle had become dead silent. There was no one, no sign of movement, nothing. There were unconscious soldiers she and Rogue had incapacitated, but the steady stream upward to the fourth floor had stopped and in the massive cavity of the wing where Lucy had just been defeated, there was no noise and no sign of life.

Minerva and Rogue limped to the fifth floor where the diamond was unprotected as it had been Hera's job to do so. They grabbed the massive yellow diamond and took it with them to the checkpoint, where they discovered Lucy had inadvertently been left behind.

"I'm going back," Sting growled in frustration.

XXX

At the port, the hateful storm had begun to roll in, but so far Laxus and Wendy's 'assault' was confined to random lightning strikes here and there. They were actually patiently waiting for the fiercest part of the storm to be overhead.

They overheard that Indus City was being evacuated as they waited, and each pondered why.

Wendy was amazingly strong for her age, and Laxus no longer regretted her presence with them. When they got back, he knew he'd have to answer to Makarov about why he let a little girl bloody her hands, but it was a choice they all made. In the presence of war, there was no such thing as not doing anything.

Even the disconnected, selfish denizens of the capital city did something when they decided not to care.

Everything that happened forced Laxus to think hard and often about children-about the little boy that died in his arms, about his little brother who was going to drop dead in a strange land from a birth defect, and about Wendy's choice to throw away the rest of her childhood to make a difference for others.

Growing up was painful-not only for him, but it seemed so many kids had to face challenges. He wondered if his little brother had ever felt the heart-wrenching pain of their father's absence from his life as Laxus had so often. He wondered if he ever felt bitter or angry about his health problems as Laxus had as a kid.

Laxus felt a burning sense of obligation, and in his mind, he toyed with various scenarios. If he played his cards right, he'd come into possession with a dragon lacrima. A lacrima might mean Nikki wouldn't die, but what would happen then? Indus was a terrible place if one didn't have blue hair, and it seemed a little crazy to try and drag him to Ishgar. But if he did do something like that, there were even more questions. Makarov was too old to raise another kid, Ivan probably hadn't grown up yet, and Laxus was literally the only other Dreyar.

He wasn't really sure what to do, only that he wanted to do something.

When the storm was directly above them, Wendy leapt up into it, wrapping the magic around her as she soared higher and higher. The sky was _Wendy's_. On a peaceful day, she presided over peace. And on a night when a hellish storm was overhead, she reigned over that too.

Wendy filled her lungs with the stormy air and continued to twist, twist, twist.

Laxus, who was on the ground, felt the powerful westward wind start to change direction. The wind stopped beating on the port city and started to churn in a circular motion, which caused an immediate disturbance in the waves. Ships started to rock from side to side, and Laxus took lightning form and broke the chains that connected them to their anchors, which caused them to start moving immediately toward the rocky shoreline.

Laxus was the muscle of this operation.

Wendy wasn't so much for the hand-on-hand combat _yet_ , but what she was doing up there she could do well.

The water started to seemingly resist the little typhoon that Wendy had created and then, most of the water froze over, turning to chunks of ice.

Laxus turned to Marin and Gauge, the last two of the Indi dragon slayers. "Does that make things worse? I hear ice and ships don't really go well together."

"Just a little display of power," Gauge said.

"Still stupid," he answered.

Marin flinched. "The man with a lightning bolt scar on his eye...You can't be…"

Suddenly, the ease with which the northern forces were destroyed made perfect sense, although she didn't know why he would be on Indi soil. She felt nervous, and her partner sensed her lack of ease.

Laxus looked from one to the other; the smart female was likely the water wizard, and ice belonged to the hot-headed male.

Marin held a hand up to her teammate. "This is Laxus Dreyar. Why are you fighting my country?"

"To be honest, I think the question is why isn't everyone else?" he asked.

Her green eyes blinked in fear. "What do you want?"

"To sink these ships and harvest the lacrima from you two-I think that means I have to kill you."

Laxus saw her fear, and knew she believed they had dismal odds of winning, which gave him confidence. "You seemed bothered, like I'm not being fair."

"You have no reason to be our enemy, no reason to attack the country, no reason to be here at all!" she exclaimed.

"I'm sure all the people you've killed felt the same way," he answered.

Gauge laughed. "Let's fight. We'll see who comes out on top."

He struck the first blow and Laxus struck back with great violence and crushing power. These four were the ones he'd wanted to punish the most because their crimes were the most grievous. While he wasn't an avenger, he did believe that some inexcusable things had happened and that not only as a wizard but as a man, he couldn't just walk away and leave them to cause destruction.

Unfortunately for these two, because they were isolated in Indus, they hadn't had the opportunity to grow the way the other dragon slayers had, nor had they recognized their own complacency. While Mikail had aggressively fought to become more powerful, the others had rested on the superiority they claimed over the ordinary humans they normally faced.

They were ill-equipped and unprepared for the Laxus Dreyar experience.

Marin probably would have preferred to bargain with him, but there was nothing she could say to barter her way out of him doing what he was going to do. Up close and personal, these wizards that were so feared by dissidents were mostly just cowards. They were scared and desperate to live just like all the people they'd killed.

Wendy watched from above, but he seemed to have the situation under control. Working with Laxus bestowed upon her the ability to fall into rhythm with the way he carried himself in battle.

Backed into a corner, Gauge the ice dragon slayer managed to open a deep cut on his side and Laxus burned it closed with lightning and continued his charge against them.

He was better at hand-to-hand, more powerful in melee and at range, he was faster, and he had a lifetime of experience of fighting other wizards.

They joined hands to unison raid and in an instant, Wendy dropped down beside Laxus in full dragon force, pumped up from the stormy sky.

Wendy took Laxus' hand.

"You get gutsier every day, kid."

Wendy smirked a little. "Unison raids are based on the shared convictions of the casters. They want to live. That's the weakest reason in the world to fight. If they don't believe in anything except the idea they deserve to live, that's really what it means to be weak, I think."

Laxus wasn't really sure how their unison raid would stack up. Wendy was young and her magic was strange at best although he was certain that by the time Wendy reached adulthood she'd be able to wield it with devastating results. Thunder and sky powers seemed to be very closely related and the more they fought together, the closer he could feel his magic was to hers. They were both things that happened in the sky, both elements of the atmosphere, both terrifyingly powerful, and usually upsets in the sky and thunder went right together.

The lightning and sky magic tangled together and fused.

"Can I name it?"

"As long as it's not stupid," he said, brow bent in determination.

Wendy shouted, "Storm dragon's lightning cyclone!"

Wendy was, at the moment, the ruler of the chaos happening in the sky above them and as part of their unison raid, seemingly brought half the sky down into the blow. There were few things that Laxus found scary but the the vision of the sky literally falling was actually pretty high on his list of things that would terrify him if they weren't happening on his side of the battle.

The magic from the two unison raids met somewhere in the middle and shards of razorsharp ice slid past to leave minor cuts of varying depth on Wendy and Laxus. This was nothing compared to the blow that the other two received when lightning climbed up through their water magic and caused it to implode, essentially causing the other wizards to bear the brunt of all the magic.

The two wizards were thrown backwards.

Laxus looked over to Wendy. "You can go be goddess of the sky now."

The pink-haired dragon-forced girl flew back into the storm and resumed her massive work.

Laxus approached the unconscious Marin first. From what he'd learned, she was the smartest one of the group, but had masterminded some unnervingly depraved things and stood behind strategies that involved hedging humanitarian disasters against rebellion.

He lifted her by the head, and snapped. For a split second, she jerked and the lacrima fell from her mouth.

He did the same to the other, and pocketed both.

The military started an attack then, but in reality, Wendy was two hundred yards from the shore and a thousand feet in the air. They didn't even have weapons that could contend with her. In passing, he was bothered that the leader hadn't shown up where they were. It meant Mikail was probably at the palace and he was the only one Laxus was really concerned about.

Unfortunately for everyone who wasn't Wendy and Laxus, these specific conditions were such that they could fight indefinitely as dragon slayers. She could eat the power-pumped up stormy sky and he could chow on some lightning and go back to wanton destruction.

Their attack lasted hours and the military never actually brought much of a threat although they certainly threw the best at them. They couldn't reach Wendy and Laxus simply blasted them to hell while a pre-teen girl beat their ships to pieces on the rocky shoreline. The wooden ships were easier and could be dealt with fairly handily with lightning.

Laxus blew up a ship full of explosives somewhat unintentionally, and the oil that was slicked on top of the water from sinking ships ignited, causing the whole port to catch on fire, which in turned brought more explosions because they were mainly warships.

By the time the storm moved out of the port and Wendy was bereft of her god-level powers, all the necessary damage had been done. Wendy came down and they sat on a rock and watched the oil fire burn as the last few ships sank. The fire crawled up the wooden docking and into the city, causing the residents to begin fleeing.

After this night, Wendy joined the league of dragons slayers who like to break stuff. It was a formative and satisfying experience.

They saw the Etherion blast from where they were watching, although it was a dim, fluorescent blue halo from where they were. The magic power was tremendous, and Wendy looked upon it with fear.

"What's that?"

"It has to be the Etherion. I guess that's why the capital city was evacuated."

Wendy tensed. "What about the others?"

"If the evacuation was public, they knew to get out of the way. I wouldn't be worried," he answered.

By the time dawn rolled around, the storm had passed through and the port city was a ghost town. Pieces of ships were sticking up out of the water here and there, and it still stunk like smoke. Parts of the city were burning, and no one was trying to stop it because the disaster with the capital was far more demanding.

Laxus picked up Minerva's scent and he and Wendy met them in the ashen remains of the city.

He saw Yukino, Rogue, Minerva, and Sting, all of whom were tense.

"Where is Lucy?" he demanded, a dangerous glint to his voice.

Sting looked up, tired and worried after having gone back to find Lucy. Her scent was gone from the castle by the time he went back, and then he'd had to leave to avoid the Etherion, which destroyed scent trails, evidence, and any sign of her.

"We don't know."

 _ **Please Review!**_

 _ **Special thanks to Katelyn, Badgirlgoth, boyceashlee, Gaia Kame, Samire Vongola, Tiernank, 12Rayne, Katieboom, silverghostkitsun, w1n6s-0f-f1r3, Guest, Guest, Paname, Thornado, kurahieiritr JIO, Illustre, yumeyumi1986, darkfaerie0, lovelylovelylove, axltz, ilarual, PrinceKuruma, theFangirlingFanboy, Nordom, Megumiyoung, H.M. Akhlys, katiekat2001, Aviend, Adabs18, CosmO333, rikary, Crystalfairy27, flamey owl, and xxshyxx, for reviewing!**_


	15. Lucy Stab!

Lucy pulled on her chains, grumbling under her breath. There was a magic inhibition cuff on her left hand, so she couldn't summon any of her spirits although she could see her keys hanging on a hook on the wall.

It was bothersome to wake up chained to a bed on any day of the week.

Mikail entered the room and found her awake. "Be still, will you?"

She continued her struggle as if she hadn't heard him, so he shocked her.

After training with Laxus for as long as as hard as she had been, she'd developed a thick skin toward shocks so she didn't respond the way he wanted her too. He shocked her again, this time hard enough to make her scream.

He climbed onto the bed with her. "Aren't you scared to wake up chained to a bed? Most women are terrified."

"Do you chain women to your bed often?" she spat sarcastically.

He leaned down and whispered, "Yes."

Lucy said in her mind, ' _Show no sign of fear,'_ although she inwardly trembled at the way he said it. This was another thing that was rare to the point that it was universally frowned upon. Sexual crimes were so rare in Fiore that Lucy believed that some of the worst enemies she'd had in Fiore would stop to help a woman in such a situation, especially the ones that were 'questionably bad' to start with.

But this wasn't Ishgar; this was Indus, where horrors came standard.

The country had gone to hell over the past twenty-four hours, with the disaster at the port where Laxus had Wendy had been as well as four Etherion blasts that destroyed the two most important cities in Indus, the other major port, and the military headquarters. All the forces in the north were gone, and the next and most real concern was that Indus had angered countries who were afraid to retaliate due to the navy. Now that seventy percent of the navy was at the bottom of the ocean, they were in a free position to retaliate.

Fifteen percent of the population had become homeless, most of them the 'prominent' citizens of Indus. The economy was in a free fall, incalculable amounts of wealth had been lost, and the country was suddenly crippled.

The only stroke of luck they'd caught was that using the Etherion four times in twenty-four hours caused it to overheat and explode, which meant that hell was at least over.

Mikail saw everything he'd sold his own soul to build crumbling and turning to dust before his eyes.

His knee nudged her, and she pressed her thighs together.

Mikail rolled next to her and put one of his hands on her flat stomach. He felt her skin twitch in rejection to his touch. "I heard you like lightning."

"Get your hand off me, you childish, stupid pig, or lightning is going to be the least of your problems."

But this, this was a worthy distraction.

Laxus Dreyar was the one against whom every lightning wizard was measured. He was a walking legend, one of the most deadly people alive anywhere on the planet, and he was young enough that anyone could easily estimate that the world was all but his.

It had been an obsession of his for years to face Laxus and defeat him. But when they'd been in Ishgar and he saw Lucy in a magazine as Laxus' girlfriend, he'd become instantly infatuated, not only because she was Laxus' but because she was stupidly beautiful.

The blonde hair was so exotic, and up close and personal, she was perfect to him. Her curves, her fit little body, her scent...Lucy was a gorgeous creature.

Lucy looked around as he forcefully parted her legs.

"I have half a mind to leave you dead and full of semen."

Lucy knew from the tone of his voice he had no problems finding the guts to do such a disgustingly deplorable thing, and she looked around frantically. Kidnapping happened to her often, but she'd never been so terrified of her captive experience.

Her instincts told her she had to do something, and she had to do it fast.

When he closed his eyes and rubbed his body against hers, Lucy snatched a pen off the nightstand and rammed it into his left eye from one side, and then pivoted it outward, ripping it cleanly through his eyeball.

He howled, growled, and hit her so hard she felt the delicate bones of her nose shatter.

Mikail ran out to the bathroom of his home at the edge of Clock Town, where he had confined Lucy. When he saw the injury, and covered his good eye, he realized the girl had _blinded him_ in one eye with nothing but a pen.

In the room, Lucy weighed all her options carefully, and she had no doubts he'd kill her in a few seconds if she didn't get the magic inhibitor cuff off. It was very literally a matter of life and death for her, so she reached for her left hand with her right.

The blonde took three deep breaths and broke the bones in her hand, forcing them out of place as they cracked and made disgusting sounds slipping from the cuff.

Lucy snatched her keys off the wall and started down the stairs. She put on Scorpio Star Dress, and started thinking up a plan, because she had to have a plan. The probability that she could outrun a dragon slayer were fairly slim, and she was already down the use of one hand.

A lightning bolt came at her, and she threw a wall of sand at it.

Sand was a natural insulator, so when it hit the lightning, it's conductivity through the air stopped, effectively blocking the attack. Unfortunately for him, she'd tried out all her spirits against lightning, so she knew how to work against him.

Lucy hit the front door and ran out into the woods just outside.

The blonde didn't feel like she needed a man to rescue her or vindicate her, and if threats against her body were made, she'd handle them on her own. However, if by using lightning outside, Laxus happened to see, that was fine too.

Lucy was grateful for every day of training she'd taken, because without it, this adventure would have failed from the start. Well-trained feet found firm ground easily, and she dodged lightning strikes and ran until the came to the abrupt edge of a cliff and she slid to a stop.

It looked to be further down to the bottom than she believed she could fall and live even using her kinetics magic, and this wasn't necessarily the time or place to test the limits of that.

She turned and added Cancer star form, although she could only hold one blade. Sand and a sword-it was the best strategy for her in this circumstance. Sand would enable her to at least lessen the devastation of the lightning and, well, this was a fight where someone was going to die. The sword seemed like the obvious choice.

Mikail was much, much stronger than she was. She had to win with some combination of lucky and wit.

"Sagittarius," she called.

Her faithful spirit appeared, saluting her.

"He can't see out of his left eye," she said as she moved, turning carefully into the blind spot he now had.

Mikail spun, and they turned tenuously as he tried to hit her with lightning and she tried to slash him with her sword. He tried to kick her, and she ducked and managed to get a lucky strike in, slicing across his back as he continued to turn.

The real strategy was this:

He had to keep moving to see her or she'd stab him; neither of them had any doubts about this. But on the other side of that, there was a limited number of times a dragon slayer could turn in a circle before their natural proclivity toward motion sickness kicked in.. All this while he tried to dodge arrows from Sagittarius. When he tried to strike the spirit, Lucy protected him.

The lightning dragon slayer realized the error of his ways as she slashed into him again. She knew dragon slayers, and she knew lightning. Lucy fought with a broken nose and a broken hand like it was nothing, ignoring the blood running over her lips and nose and down onto her clothes. She'd nearly blinded him with nothing but a cheap pen, and now she was trying to make him throw up so she could stab him in the back. She was fierce, smart, and unafraid of him.

Finally, he made contact with a powerful, painful lightning kick that should have left her twitching on the ground. Lucy crumbled to the ground and let out an ear splitting scream as her broken and good hands wrapped around the hilt of her blade and she made a devilishly fast move before his foot rested back on the ground.

It felt _cold_.

And then, it felt hot.

The tip of Lucy's blade went into his lower back from an angle and broke through the front of his chest. Two inches of it protruded from right next to his heart.

Some part of her just knew the two lightning dragon slayers were supposed to fight, but as she pulled the blade from him, she knew that wasn't going to happen. The blade went cleanly through his spine and through his chest.

Blood poured so quickly from the wound all Mikail could do was fall to the ground and stare in shock at her.

She was a fierce, unyielding woman, and he saw nothing but conviction in her eyes.

Lucy narrowed her eyes, amazed at how easy it was, knowing what a monster he really was. "Why is a killer like you afraid to die?"

He coughed and blood spewed everywhere, and weakly answered, "Because I have a few things to answer for…"

He breathing was labored for a moment, and when he coughed again, the little yellow lacrima rolled across the mulchy floor of the forest and he died.

Laxus who had arrived in Clock Town in search of Mikail, sensed the lightning and arrived less than a minute after Mikail died. Lucy was sitting on the ground, nose swollen and somewhat crooked, and her mangled left hand was resting in her lap.

Mikail looked like someone had tried to gouge his eye out with something dull, and had been skewered.

Lucy looked up when she felt his presence.

"I came here to save you," he announced.

"Thanks," she numbly answered.

When she tried to stand, the powerful blow Mikail had given her caused her legs to give out from under her, and Laxus steadied her. "I'm going to be fine."

Laxus plucked the lacrima off the forest floor. "Are you ready to go home?"

She nodded.

"Me too."

Laxus carried her on his back as they made their way back to the others. "That creep had a pretty bad reputation. He didn't bother you, did he?"

"He tried. I stabbed him in the eye."

"That's my girl."

They went to where the Blue Pegasus Christina had been hidden, and everyone else was preparing to leave the miserable nation of Indus. They all met in to discuss one of the most pressing issues.

Minerva, Laxus, and Lucy put their lacrima on the table in ship's recreational room.

Minerva asked, "What are we going to do with these? Destroy them?"

Sting, Rogue, and Wendy looked from the baubles of doom to the others.

Laxus said, "There are four dragon slayers. I think each should take one lacrima. Take a student at some point, but I say that because I need to take one of them. Two would end up with us, and two with Sabertooth."

Sting nodded. "That's fair."

Laxus took the lightning lacrima, Sting took the ice lacrima, Wendy took the fire lacrima, and Rogue ended up with the water lacrima.

Wendy took Lucy back to a different part of the ship to work on healing her hand and nose once the meeting was over.

Then Laxus split off from the group, promising to return before nightfall, when they'd begin their trip home. Since the capital was gone, he bounced around in lightning form between the camps set up for the people displaced by the destruction of the city until he picked up the scent he was looking for.

Nikki saw him and smiled, glancing up at him from darkly-circled, sick-looking eyes. "Mister, it's you." He was sitting on top of a crate in a somewhat dark alley in Clock Town where he wasn't likely to get noticed.

Laxus sat down on a crate that was next to him and unlike their first meeting, his hair wasn't covered so the boy noticed they had similar hair. "My name is Laxus Dreyar. There's not really an easy way to say this, but we have the same father."

Nikki's brows drew together in confusion for a minute, and then some strange sense of happiness that there was someone in the world he was connected to on his father's side of the family. "Does that make you my brother?"

Laxus nodded.

"I have a brother…Do you have other brothers or sisters?"

"No."

"Do you know our dad? What's he like?"

Laxus struggled to find words to describe what it was like to be a son of Ivan Dreyar, and even though he considered keeping the negativity to the minimum, he knew that if he had expectations, the only thing that would follow is disappointment. "He's a shitty father and an asshole. I was raised by my grandfather, but I guess he's your grandfather too."

"I have a grandfather? What's he like?"

Laxus held his hand up three feet from the ground. "He's only this big. He drinks a lot, and he's very powerful. He'd like to meet you."

The boy tensed a little. "I'd like that. I've always wondered if I had family, so I'd like to see them before…"

He dug into his pocket and held the lacrima out. "This can save your life, but it's going to change everything, and if you take it, you can't stay here. Someone will kill you and steal it if I do, and it would probably end up in the wrong hands again."

Nikki's heart kicked into high gear. "What is it?"

"It's a dragon lacrima. It'll enable you to use very powerful magic. I have one just like this inside of me. When it was merged with my body, it caused some of my organs to grow and change, and during that process, my heart corrected itself. It'll make you strong, and you won't be sick anymore," he said.

He didn't know how to feel about having a brother, but he didn't want Nikki to die. They were flesh and blood.

"Where will I go?"

"Fiore. I don't really know how we'll work it out, but you're at an age where you can mostly fend for yourself, so I'm not really worried about that."

For an hour, he asked questions, and Laxus answered, although it was obvious that the kid had no interest in growing up in Indus. He wanted to live and he wanted to experience life outside the country that had persistently mistreated him. To hear Laxus speak of him being healthy and okay almost seemed too good to be true, but he was already half dead and he had nothing to lose.

Nikki went to speak to his mother, who encouraged him to go to Ishgar and start his life over, because it was more than she had to offer him.

XXX

During the two week trip home on the Christina, life started to look and feel normal again. They ran out of motion sickness remedy on day four, so on day five, there were three obnoxious dragon slayers laid around in different parts of the ship. Wendy seemed to struggle with intermittent signs of nausea like the other older dragon slayers, as if it was beginning to happen to her as well.

Nikki stayed asleep for the first week due to strange complications that came with merging a human being and a dragon lacrima. No one really expected it to be as painful as it was, but Laxus pointed out the obvious fact that Nikki would die without it.

When he did stir, he didn't have the motion sickness the mature dragon slayers had and spent his time playing cards with Lucy while Minerva controlled the ship. Lucy told him all about the country, and Fairy Tail, and what she knew about Makarov and Laxus.

Wendy periodically took breaks to check on Yukino between bouts of nausea, but Yukino mainly remained in bed and Wendy didn't think it was just because she was injured. Healing a broken spirit was beyond her reach, at least at that point in her life.

Lucy studied Anna Heartfilia's journal and upon coming across the mention of the diamond, she understood why it had been taken. The gigantic yellow diamond in question was a lacrima that had been made during the Dragon King's Festival, when all the dead dragons under Crocus died. To keep Acnologia from absorbing the power, it was captured into the diamond and entrusted to Anna Heartfilia to be sealed.

Upon her death, it passed into the possession of her friend, an adventurer named Edward Sawarr, who had been cursed by Zeref to never be able to use magic. The Sawarr family had protected it since that time. They were the rightful protectors of it, for better or worse.

Sabertooth dropped the Fairy Tail wizards and Nikki in Magnolia before continuing on to return the Christina to Blue Pegasus, and Lucy felt a strange sense of surreal peace as she set foot on the ground she knew.

They were back in the real world, back in their safe place, and far away from everything that happened. It had been two and a half months since they'd been home, and their lives had all changed drastically.

Wendy ran back to the dorm, anxious to see her friends, bathe in her own bathtub, sleep in her own bed, and tell Charle everything that happened while she was gone.

Lucy, who was holding the diamond in her bag, looked from Laxus to Nikki and then back up again. "I'm going to go meet with the client and then go home. Take a bath. Maybe go find out what kind of trouble my other team has been in since we've been gone."

Laxus nodded in understanding. "We'll go home too. I'll probably head to the guild later and give Gramps the shock of his lifetime."

His girlfriend gave him a quick kiss. "I'll see you later, okay?"

Lucy was relieved, and happy, and then had happiness on top of happiness, as she walked down familiar streets. People she passed spoke her language, and it was a calm, pleasant afternoon in early spring. Everything seemed new, fresh, and vibrant to her.

She passed a newsstand and the big story was that the government of Indus had collapsed. The king had been deposed and publicly executed probably by the same people who had cheered him on. Occupied countries were breaking off while the monstrous nation tried to salvage as much as they could in the wake of the destruction. Lucy found it sad that once that everything was over, people wanted to talk about how awful things were.

It was like the whole world had turned a blind eye to what was going on until it wasn't happening anymore, at which point the suffering of the people there became real.

Lucy had an enormous amount of admiration for Laxus for having the guts to stand up to a huge country over one little boy's life.

Laxus was truly a good man, and he was so strong.

As a student of history, she believed things would inevitably get better. People would work together and find a way to move forward, and whatever came next would be better than what was there before.

Duke Sawarr was in the restaurant where Lucy met him, conducting his business from a corner table in the back. He knew she'd probably be back around and had returned to Magnolia on the heels of the news about Indus. He suspected that for better or worse, the decay of the government had allowed Lucy to complete her mission.

Lucy sat in the booth across from him and put the bag on the table.

He looked inside at the diamond and smiled at her. "Outstanding. Do you know who took it?"

"King Garrett of Indus. He sent four wizards here to steal it. Both he and all four of them are deceased," she explained.

The blonde put the journal on the table. "Your family was entrusted with protecting this by my ancestor. It's very powerful, but it's magically sealed. Please continue protecting it. This journal will explain more about it."

Duke Sawarr put the Aquarius key on the table and slid it over to her. "And the rest of the money?"

They took care of the pragmatics; the duke would wire the money to the three Fairy Tail wizards, which meant Lucy would have enough money to pay her rent for six years in addition to getting her hands on Aquarius' key again.

She and the duke signed the job request, indicating its completion. Something about the way she carried herself caused him to hold his tongue on offending her as she looked confidently dangerous.

Once the ink dried, she stood and went straight to her apartment, where her landlady promptly fussed her her about rent. Lucy wasn't going to miss hearing that, and was looking forward to paying maybe a whole year up front just so she didn't have to hear the constant nagging when she came home.

Lucy wanted to see Team Natsu and everyone else at the guild, but there was a part of her that still felt blemished and dirty, so she took a long shower, convinced the grimy Indi dust was still caked to her skin. She would have sworn she could still smell gunpowder, and hear the sounds of explosives.

She filled the bath with water, and then soak for a while, trying to clear her mind.

Meanwhile at the guild, Laxus was standing in Makarov's office, explaining everything that happened.

The old man shook his head at the things they'd witnessed because like most people, he had no idea how bad things were. Makarov had received about six hundred pages of complaints about what Laxus and was doing in Indus from the Council because it was against the law for a wizard to fight in one of the nation's wars. Makarov helped his grandson avoid prosecution by rightly pointing out that Fiore wasn't at war with Indus-Laxus was.

He'd seen some signs in his grandson lately that pointed to greatness: first, he had brought out enormous potential in Lucy, and then he strategized and won the Grand Magic Games. Now Makarov heard that he put everything on the line and fought for innocent people, which demonstrated Laxus had developed compassion.

It was very discouraging that one of the saint wizards sold an Etherion Cannon, but Makarov decided to report that and handle it without Laxus or their team because they'd clearly been through too much.

"Wendy is all right? She's awfully young to have been in that position," Makarov asked.

Laxus nodded. "I think it's naive to assume she's going to be the same old Wendy. She's not. She grew up a lot. We have to readjust."

Makarov nodded in understanding. "You're still dating Lucy?"

"Indus isn't really the kind of place you 'date,' but we're still together."

"Good. If your relationship can survive that, I think you'll make it," the old man said.

Once everything had been discussed, Laxus leaned against the wall by the window. "So, do you remember that awful woman my dad used to date?"

Makarov blinked in confusion. "Except for your mother, they were all awful. I need more details."

"Caroline Taggert."

His grandfather cringed visibly. "That old bitch…"

Laxus looked down and said, "I ran into her in Indus. She had a kid, Gramps."

"That's nice," he dismissively said.

"...with my dad," he added.

Makarov froze for a minute. "Ivan had another child...When did this happen?"

"His name is Nikki. He's already thirteen, so this happened a while back."

The old man seemed panicked and worried all at once. "This child is in Indus?"

His grandson raised an eyebrow. "Gramps, give me a little more credit than that, will you? I'm not that much of a dick. He's at my apartment."

Makarov tried very hard not to cry and hug his grandson for his kind actions as Laxus explained everything on the way to the apartment. He had never considered Laxus as a brother, and perhaps Laxus had never considered it himself, but when it came down to it, he'd made noble and good choices. Laxus had saved his brother's life and brought him home so he could be safe. This shed a lot of light on how Laxus actually felt about his blood family, since no one in the family was ever honest about how they thought and felt about one another.

When they got close to the apartment, they spotted Nikki playing ball with some kids from the neighborhood. In Indus, he was such an outcast he'd never been able to do such things, but here in Ishgar, he went outside and kids invited him to play on the simple basis that they were all kids and baseball was fun.

Makarov stopped and they watched him from the trees. "He looks so much like you."

Laxus nodded. "He's not a bad kid. He had it really rough over there."

"He can come stay with me, I suppose," the old man said.

His grandson looked down. "You're too old for that. He can stay with me. He's practically old enough to take care of himself anyway."

This was actually literally the only arrangement that made sense. Makarov had a bad heart and probably had bleak chances of surviving until the boy became an adult. Ivan was useless as a father, and Laxus didn't even bother with considering that. Laxus was the only other member of the family, and while it was the last thing he would have wanted, family was family - Makarov had taken him in, so it wasn't surprising that a time had come to pay it forward.

Laxus couldn't let Makarov keep carrying the burdens of the family on his shoulders by himself.

Makarov's eyes watered and Laxus rolled his eyes as he felt his unbelievably short grandfather hug his leg tightly. "That's my boy!"

"Ugh. Gramps, c'mon."

"I'm so proud of you! You're such a good brother."

"Goddamit, old man. Stop already!"

It had been a long time since Makarov embarrassed him in public, but there was still a small part of Laxus that loved to have his grandfather's affirmation and praise, even if he'd let hell freeze over before he showed it.

Makarov approached the boy and introduced himself to his second grandson for the first time. They had dinner together, as Dreyar men, and Makarov found it somehow seemed right that there would be two of them. They got along well; Laxus was a boorish jerk as always and Nikki had the polite, well-mannered sweetness characteristic of a boy who had been raised only by a mother.

Nikki told him repeatedly that his comments were rude and inappropriate and Laxus tried to get him to laugh at them anyway.

It made Makarov indescribably happy to witness this.

They eventually went back to the apartment and while Nikki took a shower, Makarov sat in the living room and gushed over his grandson's growth as a man.

Laxus rolled his eyes, entirely annoyed by the fact he was being praised for taking care of something even an asshole would probably do. Actually, he was doing it so he knew an asshole would do it too.

He decided to mess his grandfather's world up a little. "I'm thinking about asking Lucy if she'll elope with me."

Makarov spit out the whiskey he'd been enjoying with his grandson. "Laxus, I have a bad heart. I've had three strokes. Don't fuck with me, I'll die, and then what?"

"I'll be the guild master of Fairy Tail and we'll all move on with our lives after a period of obligatory mourning?" he nonchalantly suggested.

"Laxus!"

"I have some crocodile tears saved up for the occasion."

Makarov asked, "Are you being serious?"

"I'm honestly not sure at this point in the conversation."

His grandfather narrowed his eyes. "Laxus, she's not...you didn't get that girl pregnant, did you?"

Laxus flashed back to numerous bouts of unprotected, reckless sex they'd had on Indi soil. "God, I hope not. I already have a kid in my life right now. I suppose it's too late to ask for a refund?"

Actually, he felt a little nervous when he thought about it and made a mental note to ask Lucy.

"Laxus!"

Well, Makarov _thought_ his grandson had matured and grown up. Makarov carefully retracted all such thoughts from his mind as Laxus engaged in their lifelong tradition of getting on his last nerve for no other reason than for pure amusement. Makarov briefly prayed that he didn't teach his little brother this art form.

There was silence, and Makarov asked, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life with Lucy?"

The situation became awkward in an instant, because Laxus wanted to talk to his grandfather about Lucy, but he wanted the conversation to not involve any discussions about his feelings.

When he didn't answer, Makarov said, "I don't have any advice to give you except you guys just came back from hell and a lot is going on. It might be a good idea to wait for a little while. If you change too much in your life at one time, it'll be hard to get used to all the changes. She's not going anywhere."

This did make sense, and made him glad he'd awkwardly approached the subject.

After Makarov went home, Laxus went straight to Lucy's apartment, climbed through the window, and found Team Natsu was in her apartment and she was laughing and happy. He joined them and played a round of poker with Erza, Gray, and Juvia, during which Juvia took all the money he had in his wallet.

After her teammates went home, Lucy wrapped her arms around him tightly. They held each other for what seemed to be a lifetime.

Finally, they had time for _them_.

Their relationship had blossomed into love too soon before they went to Indus, so most of their time together, they'd been struggling to take care of so many other things. They'd had sex in Indus, but in most cases, it wasn't really sweet and just helped meet a need so they could continue to focus on the task at hand.

Laxus laid her down on the bed and planned out neatly in his mind how he was going to make slow, amazing love to her, but the bed smelled like her and it was so soft and she was right there with him.

He fell into the deepest sleep she'd seen him in since they left for Indus. All that time, he'd tried to stay as alert as possible and tried to protect their team to the point he never really got to rest. The weight of cumulative exhaustion was heavy on him even as he slept with his ear against her chest. The rhythm of her heartbeat calmed him further, and he she held him as he slept.

At three in the morning, he stirred and turned on the lamp on her nightstand. "Hey are you pregnant?" he abruptly asked.

Lucy's eyes opened and she looked up at him blankly. "What…" she groaned.

He repeated the question, and she rolled over onto his chest. "Of course not. I had my period on the way back while you were puking your eyeballs out on the Christina. Think we got lucky."

"What a relief," he mumbled as he snuggled her.

They shifted and moved trying to get comfortable, and when she rested her head on his bicep and looked up at him lovingly, he cupped her face with his hand and kissed her gently.

Laxus rubbed her back and his hands found their way to her butt. "I told Gramps I wanted to run off and elope with you. He told me it might be a good idea to wait. I guess that makes sense."

"You can't be serious," she said, almost laughing at how she knew Makarov probably responded.

Common sense said it was a terrible idea.

They'd been a couple officially for less than three months, almost all of which was spent in dire conditions. They hadn't had important conversations about anything, they didn't have any plans as a couple, and they both had a laundry list of issues they still needed to work out.

Lucy held him in such high regard, trusted him so completely, and loved him so much that none of that mattered. She knew it might bring some challenges, but there wasn't anything they couldn't work out together.

"I believe in us," she whispered.

"Me too."

They kissed again, made love for the better part of two hours, and when the sun started to come up, she laid her body against his.

Laxus leaned down and whispered, "Gramps said to wait a while. It's been eight hours. Do you think that's enough time?"

She laughed and shook her head. "No sir. That is not what Master meant and you know it. Why on earth are you suddenly in such a rush to get married?"

When he considered it, he had a hard time trying to find words to explain how he felt. "I love you," he finally managed to utter.

Lucy kissed him on the forehead. "I love you too."

"You want to move in with me? That seems like a good compromise. I'll get to see your face every morning, and when you get tired of it, you can leave and it won't require any paperwork or filing court documents," he teasingly suggested.

Lucy considered it and nodded. "Okay. Let's live together."

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 _ **Special thanks to scarlethousecarl, Megumiyoung, thornado, aviend, 12rayne, katelyn, guest, xxShyxx, lovelylovelylove, rikary, kurahieiritr JIO, morenoel, cosmo333, princekurama, and axltz for reviewing!**_


	16. Lucy Promotion!

Laxus didn't plan for love, didn't expect it, didn't know it when he first felt it.

Indus taught him how important it was, and how much he desperately needed the little blonde woman that had turned his world completely upside down. So when he came home, his first order of business was making sure she stayed close in the best way that he could.

With his earnings from the Indus job, he bought a three bedroom row house across the street from South Gate Park. Lucy moved into one of the two bedrooms upstairs, and he beside her. This seemed like a good first step, and waypoint between just dating and shacking up like properly married people. He had his space, she had hers, but the only nights he didn't visit her at night were the nights she crept into his bed.

The bedroom downstairs was occupied by the youngest Dreyar.

Upon moving to Magnolia, Nikki started using the Dreyar name, and settled in as well as he could. He had a set routine and needed little parental supervision; he went to school, and then came by the guild and did his homework every day. He got into no trouble, was very respectful and kind, and seemed so grateful just to have a second chance to live.

The dragon slayer lacrima began its work on his body, and over the course of the spring, he grew over eight inches from being shorter than his peers to taller.

The men had a hard time connecting, but that was to be expected. Even if they did share one of the deepest and most important human connections, they were just meeting for the first time. They were from different backgrounds, different cultures, and different age groups.

Sometimes, Laxus felt awkward because he knew the kid looked up to him more than anyone in the world. He was the first man that had been in his brother's life at all, so Nikki watched his every move and he found himself trying to set a better example.

He was in the basement one night a few weeks after they moved in lifting weights when Nikki came down to get a basket of laundry from the dryer. The younger Dreyar watched his older brother carefully, and Laxus rested the weight just as cautiously after he finished his bench press.

"Someday, I want to be strong like you, you know. I don't want to be a scrawny kid forever," he said.

Laxus sat up, shirtless and sweaty. "I used to be smaller than you," he admitted.

"Really?"

Laxus nodded and stood, gesturing to the bench. "Sit."

"I'm not strong like that. I'd just make myself look an idiot."

"And if you don't ever try, you'd actually be one. I'd rather look like a fuckwit than actually act like one any day," Laxus answered.

The boy sat down while Laxus adjusted the weights. "Did people ever laugh at you?"

This was the part of being a guardian that Laxus was unprepared for, but it was most necessary. Nikki was old enough that he could have lived on his own, if necessary. What was required of him was more honesty and vulnerability than he offered others. He felt he would have been unable to be an adequate in this role if he hadn't grown as a person with Lucy.

Nikki laid on the bench and gripped the bar, and then felt Laxus move his hands to the correct position.

"Of course. But I decided to do what I wanted to do anyway. Nobody's fucking laughing now."

Lucy came down when the laundry didn't make it back upstairs where she and Nikki had been folding, and she sat at the top of the steps and watched her boyfriend. She felt like she'd had the opportunity to be up close and personal as Laxus started to really hit his peak as a person. Sure, he'd been strong before she ever came along, but suddenly, he was reaching for higher things.

The doorbell rang, and Lucy turned to go upstairs, only to be beaten to the door by Laxus.

"What gives?!"

Laxus said, "What if it's someone dangerous?"

"I can handle myself."

He opened the door and found Evergreen with her baby. "Ever?"

Laxus hadn't seen her in months, and she seemed so different from the first second he saw her. Her face seemed so soft and happy, and after watching her awkward, angry teenage years, he was pleased to see her look so fulfilled. He wondered if maybe they were all growing up and finding happiness; Bixlow had a pretty serious thing going with a girl in town and Freed had all but claimed victory in his somewhat old-fashioned pursuit of Mirajane.

Really, the whole guild was in a process of re-alignment and shifting. Old teams were gradually shifting to new ones. Team Natsu had reached a point where it was simply overkill for normal jobs, so Lucy had really broken off first, but it had been awhile since the rest of them were together. It wasn't terrible; the guild benefitted from people finding new ways to work together.

Evergreen smiled at Laxus. "I wanted my son Jack to meet you, is that okay? I figured you probably wouldn't come around on your own."

Laxus knew what she was really there for. "Nikki, get up here."

Evergreen quickly said, "I just have to see it. I've heard he looks just like you. Mira calls him 'little good Dreyar' and you 'big bad Dreyar.'"

Lucy let out a squeal of sorts and approached the baby carefully as his mother held him against her shoulder.

"Do you want to hold him?" Evergreen asked.

She apprehensively shook her head. "Oh no. That's okay."

Truthfully, Lucy wasn't like every other woman everywhere in the world; she didn't grow up around babies and she was nervous. She really didn't know how to hold the infant, and she didn't really want to humiliate herself in front of Laxus for some reason. It made her feel self-conscious that he'd see her act inept around the baby. In theory, it was something she was supposed to be good at.

Laxus noticed her somewhat evident fear of the infant and quirked a brow in question.

Nikki came up from the basement and Evergreen handed the baby off to Lucy, who awkwardly tried to not look like a complete novice.

Evergreen rushed the boy, whose eyes widened at her approach. "Oh he's so cute. Tell me we can keep him!" she exclaimed, pinching his cheeks and pulling him down into a hug that left his nose squarely between her huge breasts. Nikki's hands stretched awkwardly out at each side and waved frantically.

Lucy finally managed to shift until she got the infant in a comfortable position and looked up to make sure no one had seen her little awkward moment. Of course, Laxus had been watching her every move with an amused, secretive smirk, and when she looked away, she blushed.

Laxus turned his attention back to Evergreen. "He's a thirteen-year-old boy, could you get him out of your tits please?"

Evergreen let him go. "Tell me everything about you."

Nikki was taken by the hand to the living room and interrogated. Everyone who knew Laxus had a strange reaction to the fact he existed, and amusingly enough, most of them were surprised that he looked like Laxus, but wasn't an asshole.

Lucy sat on the stairs with the baby and Laxus turned his attention back to his girlfriend.

He leaned on the rail and looked down on her. "Have you ever held a baby before?"

"Look, I don't know if this makes me bad at being a woman, but I don't know anything about babies," she whispered in embarrassment.

He decided to poke her about what he very clearly perceived. "Why didn't you want me to know you were terrible with babies?"

Her blush only deepened at the question. "You're the one that said it!"

"Said what?"

"That you want a baby!"

"When did I say that?"

"In Indus?"

"I didn't mean that at all. I was just talking crazy because it felt like the world was ending," he nervously spat.

"So you don't," she said, trying to mask a small amount of disappointment in her voice.

Laxus sat next to her on the stairs and watched her intently, which only made her feel more embarrassed.

He'd had a plan before she came along, and as he sat there and watched her cautiously and carefully hold the infant, he knew his old plan sucked. The idea of living alone as a bachelor forever, being the strongest wizard in the world, and never bothering with a personal life was miserable, pointless, and unrealistic. It was also something he stopped wanting, piece by piece.

Lucy looked up and asked, "You want to trying holding him?"

After considering it for a minute, the tightly-swaddled white-haired baby boy transferred from her arms to his, and Laxus found himself oddly stiff and instantly nervous because the the baby just seemed so damn tiny and fragile.

He flashed back to Alvin, the little boy that died in his arms in Indus, and remembered how to felt to hold an innocent little person while the life slipped from their body. At some point, that little boy had started like like this: impossibly tiny and filled with infinite potential.

This baby would grow up in a safe place under the wings of his parents. The future was limitless, unbounded, and unwritten. He had good parents, and probably a bright future before him.

He wasn't sure if he could provide that, although not for the normal reasons.

Lucy leaned on his arm and said, "I'm not really good at being a woman, you know? Like, most girls know how to cook and do all this amazing stuff. I don't know about taking care of babies or being the woman in a house. Kind of crappy, I guess. My mom didn't teach me much besides magic, but I'm grateful for that. To be honest, I'd rather be able to defend myself and my friends than bake a cake. I mean, I'll figure that out. I'm trying."

Laxus kissed her hair. Some of their best times in the house involved them trying to cook. They were amazing, powerful wizards, but they were easily undone by a recipe for baked chicken or macaroni and cheese. When they managed to cook something properly, it was a great victory. Nikki was an excellent cook, and sometimes they would gravitate toward the kitchen and watch him work like the mad scientist he was.

"I'm kind of shit at being a guy too, I guess. I don't really know how to take care of a woman or a kid," he answered.

Lucy touched the baby's hair and said, "We're doing all right. My mom did teach me that we have to find our own way in life. I think we're doing really good and I'm happy here, with you."

The baby yawned and Lucy caught Laxus smiling at him although he seemed profoundly sad for a split second.

Evergreen came back and crashed into their conversation, staying for an hour or so before she left. Since it was dark and she had a baby, Laxus walked her home in silence and returned to the house to find Lucy and Nikki in the kitchen, taking homemade pizzas out of the oven.

Laxus was quiet as they ate and when it was time for bed, he waited for Lucy to get settled into bed before he went to her room, turned on the lights and came and sat on the edge of the bed.

Lucy smiled at him gave the bed a little pat. "You want to lay down with me?"

He nodded and crawled into bed beside her. "We need to talk."

The blonde said, "What's on your mind?"

The dragon slayer looked down at her and said, "You know I'd do nearly anything to make you happy, right?"

"Of course."

Laxus looked down. "Meeting Nikki changed some things for me. I was born with a birth defect. It happens. Nikki was born exactly the same, so that means it's in our blood. If we have a baby, there's probably a good chance the baby will be born fucked up, and then he'll die. I don't...I'm not equipped to deal with that, and I don't think you are either."

Lucy's brows drew together tightly as he spoke. Nothing he said was wrong; there was obviously some very deadly genetic defect in their bloodline. Laxus and Nikki survived on the merits of intervention that might not be available otherwise.

She hadn't wanted to have a kid until he came along, but there was some instinctive desire that came with loving someone as much as she loved him.

But she couldn't argue with anything that he said.

She felt like such an adult as she considered what he'd just put before her. His concerns were more than valid, and when she considered it, it worried her too. It was one thing to always act and hope for the best, but the idea of taking care of a child who had no chance of living to adulthood was very scary.

Laxus gave her a long time to think about it, and then said, "I feel like you're supposed to be a mother at some point. I'm not going to give you that. This is the kind of shit people break up over, who wants to have babies, who doesn't."

Lucy snuggled up to him and put her hand on his face. "I promised I wouldn't leave, right? I'm happy with you, I really am. You're the most amazing man that I've ever known and I love you so much sometimes I think my heart is going to burst."

Her boyfriend kissed her. "Is it going to be enough? You're going to wake up one day and be fifty. You're not going to have any kids. Maybe you won't even have me...the life expectancy of a wizard can be shit."

Lucy climbed on top of him and put her fingers over his lips. "Shh. I'm a grown woman and I can make my own decisions. Please respect that."

Some part of him wondered if he should just break it off out of his own will because he was, by his own confession, planning on cheating her out of something he knew she desired to have in her future. Had it been anything else, he would have descended into the pits of hell to make her happy.

But this was one thing he couldn't and wouldn't do.

XXX

The spring passed in much-needed peace.

Laxus and Lucy didn't speak about babies again and grew together with each day that passed, finding a smooth rhythm to life and to love. They trained hard, played hard, and went on jobs separately. Lucy didn't necessarily like working with him on small jobs, and he found that sometimes it was better for people not to be around one another constantly.

In early summer, Makarov pulled his grandson from jobs to help him prepare for S-Class exams, which hadn't successfully completed since the year before Tenrou.

First, the disaster on Tenrou Island happened, then the guild was disbanded after Tartaros, and the year after, fallout from Alvarez was ongoing, so this was the first year in quite a while the exam was going to take place.

He knew a month before Lucy did that she'd been picked to take the exam, but he held his tongue because he knew it was exciting to have one's name announced. Lucy seemed unaware exactly how strong she'd become, but he knew her to be ferociously strong. In the past year, she'd defeated Bacchus, Minerva, and Mikail, all who were at S-Class level.

There was typical build-up of activity and completed jobs in the two weeks leading up to the announcement, but this was pointless and useless as worthiness for the S-Class exams wasn't determined based on what a wizard did in that short span of time. They were chosen based on their overall progression, growth, and ability as wizards.

On the day the exam was announced, the guild was full and rowdy, but an air of anticipation lingered.

Laxus could hardly care as he'd become enthralled with his favorite drama of all.

In true Fairy Tail tradition, Romeo and Nikki disliked one another immediately. It was almost against guild rules for teenagers of the same age and gender to get along, and they had a proud history of violent rivalries, the most virulent of which happened to be Erza v. Mirajane.

It was more Romeo who caused the initial ruffling of feathers, but it no longer mattered. Laxus felt like it was good for Nikki, because he became increasingly less polite and soft-spoken as their rivalry boiled on. They'd recently upgraded their tension to a proper Fairy Tail rivalry and would fight in the middle of the guild.

The thing that made it interesting to watch were the days when Wendy was around.

So Laxus sat upstairs and watched Romeo try to divide his time between trying to make Wendy laugh and fist fighting Nikki. Wendy was entirely uninterested in their petty immature rivalry or their petty boyish squabbles and was studying a magic book intently.

Makarov finally walked onto the stage and the guild fell silent.

"I have two important announcements to make," the old man said, holding a microphone in hand.

Everyone collectively tensed.

"First, this years S-Class trials will be held two weeks from today on Tenrou Island. Current S-Class wizards are required to arrive within a week in order to begin preparations for the planned tests. Due to the large crop of wizards that has qualified this year, the testing process will be slightly altered, but participants will receive details on the island."

Laxus watched Lucy, who was sitting at the bar with Mirajane.

"This year's participants include those who were completed the first round but unable to complete the previous suspended trial: Cana Alberona, Levy McGarden, Natsu Dragneel, Gray Fullbuster, and Elfman Strauss. Wizards who have qualified based on their performance during these past few years include: Freed Justine, Juvia Lockser, Gajeel Redfox, and Lucy Heartfilia!"

"EH?!" she exclaimed, choking on her strawberry shake.

Her eyes shot up to the balcony, as if to ask 'did you know' to which he simply grinned and winked at her.

Lucy was so shocked she almost didn't know what to do. Even if she had confidence in herself, being recognized as being worthy to possibly stand among the elite was really such a huge honor she didn't even know how to react. Of course, she knew Natsu and a few others would qualify, and secretly, she had a hope, but she was so excited she almost wanted to jump up and down and scream.

Makarov put a hand up as people cheered and protested in tandem. "AND, I do have another announcement. I received this letter from the Magic Council."

He held up a letter, and they prepared for a lecture. Letters that were mailed from the Magic Council to Fairy Tail had a fairly uniform theme: stop destroying stuff.

The old man unfolded it carefully. It says:

"There are rare times in a wizard's life when he is given the opportunity to use the greatness he has to bring about real change in the lives of others. We have long defined a saint wizard as one who uses the power at his disposal to help those to whom no power has been given, to pursue justice for those who cannot, and to bring to light those who have been left in the dark.

"Recently, world events have brought to light inexcusable injustices that were perhaps overlooked by many who felt they were unable to make a difference. Humanity's skill for overlooking suffering caused a blind eye to be turned to some of the most startling atrocities of our era.

"We have taken notice of the inconceivable impact of the actions of Laxus Dreyar when confronted with these circumstances, in addition to other acts. These acts include providing instrumental leadership and ability during the Alvarez invasion and the defense of Hargeon during the attack by Wahl Etto, saving the town of Magnolia from anti-barrier particles at the extreme risk of your own life, and engaging in the battle to defeat Tartaros and Grimoire Heart.

"After much care and deliberation, the Magic Council hereby endorses Laxus Dreyar as one of the Ten Wizard Saints. We look forward to seeing him grow and continue to use his powers for the benefit of mankind."

A wizard saint always delivered the news to a new wizard saint, and it was fitting that Makarov would be the one to bring Laxus up into the world of the most elite.

Somehow, this truly and completely surprised Laxus.

The letter was a little cheesy to him and made his stomach turn a little. It was uncomfortable for him to have other people point out what a great guy he was, and since he had such a bad personality, this didn't happen often.

Makarov had a blue and silver coin in hand that served as evidence of his sainthood and he held it up briefly before tossing it.

Laxus caught it in his fist and looked down on the proof that he was now recognized as one of the most lethal but important figures in the magic world.

It was an important moment for the guild as well. The Saint Wizards had a heavy influence on the Magic Council, and Makarov, Warrod, and Jura were already strongly sympathetic to their guild. They honestly hadn't wanted to put another Fairy Tail wizard among the ten, even though Gildarts and Laxus were both qualified.

Public opinion swayed so hard for Laxus when the news about Indus hit, and so did the opinion of the king. When the corruption involving one of their saint wizards selling an Etherion Cannon had come out, it amounted to them nearly being forced to acknowledge him. Laxus was impossible to ignore as a part of the magic world.

The guild celebrated, loudly and with much intoxication.

There was a moment while they were drinking at two in the morning where Lucy was a little tipsy, Gajeel was singing, and Happy was making up songs about lightning farts where Laxus looked across the guild and felt the familiar sense of family.

He scrapped with Natsu and they broke a table Cana was sitting at, which caused a chain reaction that set the whole guild off in its normal celebratory chaos.

They were settling down when Nikki came tumbling into Laxus after being shoved by Romeo, knocking both of them into the ground.

Macao laughed at his son. "That's my boy."

This rankled the elder Dreyar. "How about a duel then? Dreyars versus whatever the hell your name is...I doubt anybody knows it anyhow."

Macao withered. "Th-That's alright."

Laxus offered his brother a hand as he stood and pulled him to his feet. If other people felt like it was funny or strange for him to be okay with having a brother, his attitude didn't change. He didn't care what anybody thought about it at all. No, he wasn't going to let a grown man have a laugh at the kid's expense. Not ever. That was the kind of stuff a kid stayed up at night thinking about.

Makarov watched the exchange from the corner of his eye and his expression eased.

Laxus carried Lucy home because she got a little bit too intoxicated, so he put her in her bed, took her shoes off, and kissed her goodnight. It was rare for her to get really drunk, but he found it cute when she did. She was an affectionate and somewhat silly drunk, and some of the weirdest, most fantastic sex they had was when she'd had a few too many drinks and crawled into his bed giggling.

Nikki had gone to bed by the time he came back downstairs and he was glad to be alone.

Laxus was having some serious thinking time when there was a gentle knock on the door.

It was three in the morning, so he felt worried at first, but when he opened the door his hands fell at his sides, fists tightening out of sheer anger.

"Hello, son."

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Special thanks to megumiyoung, w1n6s-0f-f1e3, scarlethousecarl, kurahieiritr JIO, yumeyumi1986, aoutre, silverghostkitsune, axltz, flamey owl, mwolfe13, aviend, 12rayne, paname, adabs18, gruffmage7653, cosmo333, and 33p1987 for reviewing!

AN: Relax, it's going to be okay. Mostly.


	17. Lucy Trial! Part 1

"Hello, son."

Laxus didn't even attempt to hide the disgust on his face, but his main instinct in that moment was to keep his father from coming into contact with Nikki. He didn't want anyone in the house to wake up, so he stepped outside and closed the door.

"Not going to invite me in?" Ivan sarcastically asked.

Laxus quietly said, "Of course not. Don't act stupid."

Ivan crossed his arms. "I assume you know why I'm here."

"I don't even know why you exist, much less why you decided to blow through town and show up at my house."

"You are still my son. Speaking of sons, I heard you brought Caroline's baby here."

"Baby? He's a fucking teenager, and he's never met you. He would have died without having ever known you. So don't show up at my damn door and act like you're ready to be a dad now."

His father furrowed his brows. "Died? He wasn't...was he born like you?"

Laxus' face scrunched up angrily. "Yes," he hissed.

Ivan seemed thoughtful for a moment, but quickly changed the subject. "I know you had four dragon lacrima in your possession. I assume you took care of that."

"You always assume someone else will pick up the slack for your shit parenting."

His father knew his son's rage wasn't to be taken lightly, and that he didn't have any good grace with Laxus. Most people maintained a sense of obligation toward family no matter how bad they were, but Ivan knew as he looked into his son's eyes that he was one wrong word from triggering his son's terrifying temper.

Ivan continued staring at his son. "I do care for you, you know."

Laxus shook his head. "Enough bullshit. You're here because of the dragon lacrima."

"They were stolen from me."

"And where did you get them?"

His father said, "That's not your concern. They're rightfully mine."

Laxus crossed his arms and answered, "I really don't have the time or patience to put up with any more of your shit. Leave the lacrima issue alone, because if you do happen to get your hands on one, I promise you it'll be the last thing you do."

Yet as he stood there and stared at his father, he knew this was going to be another sordid chapter in their terrible family history.

Then he remembered what he'd wanted to ask his father. "Deadbeat, I have a question. Nikki and I were both born with a hole in the left side of our heart. If we both have it, that means it should be in our blood. I asked Gramps. We looked at our whole family tree, even going back to the northern country Yuri Dreyar came from. Over the past seven hundred years, no one has died young from a condition that might have been the same."

Ivan cut his eyes to one side. "It's not your business either."

Laxus nodded once. "Okay. Let me see if I can make you understand."

The next thing Ivan knew, his back had slammed forcefully against the tree on the other side of the park and he couldn't breathe. He puffed and gasped and pulled at the hand wrapped around his throat until Laxus released him.

His father rubbed his throat. "What did you want to know?"

"Why are Nikki and I the only ones who were born with a deadly condition?"

"Why do you want to know?"

Laxus growled, "Can I pass it on or not?"

Ivan laughed.

And his son wasn't sure if he'd ever hated him as much as he did in that moment.

In some ways, Laxus felt like less of a man because he didn't believe he could have a healthy child with someone that he loved. It wouldn't have bothered him if he didn't love Lucy, or if he didn't know her desires, or if he didn't have that desire himself. In a perfect world, of course they had a baby someday.

He knew he disappointed her, but she still stayed. That fact alone made him feel like shit that he couldn't ever have a family because she was possibly the only person in the whole world that could have caused him to want one.

Ivan's laughter felt like mocking condescension. "You want babies, Laxus? Trust me, fatherhood isn't all people make it out to be. You'd probably be about as good at it as me. Don't even bother. People will just expect you to be something you're not."

Laxus punched him squarely in the nose, sending him to the ground. "You don't even know me, you stupid fuck."

Ivan touched his nose and looked at the blood. "It's a curse. It was intended to wipe out our family name, so I think it's probably likely it'll persist."

"Someone cursed you."

This was like fuel on the fire for Laxus, who thought back to being young and being so sick, having no hope, and his dad was always wrecking his poor heart. The idea that he and Nikki had suffered through that because of their absent father was almost enough to make him want to pin his father down and beat him to death.

"Tell me everything."

Laxus listened and found he was angrier the longer the story went on. In his youth, Ivan battled and killed the young only son of a powerful wizard in the northern country, which eventually absorbed into the nation of Alvarez.

The idea was simple: Ivan took her son, so as a result, his would die too, and their sons after that, until there was nothing left of their name.

Basically, everything awful about his childhood and the most upsetting truth of his future were all caused by his father who acted with no regard to what he'd done.

Curses of this nature were usually not breakable, but Laxus felt like he owed it to himself and Lucy to try anyway. Even Nikki, really-he'd grow up someday and maybe want to have a family too. Gramps as well...he'd done so much for the family for it to just end because of Ivan.

"That's something you should have made sure I knew as soon as I got old enough to have sex."

"Nothing happened, right? I considered it, but then I decided you didn't seem like the type to want a kid and probably would take care of the problem if it happened. The idea of you trying to have a child is absurd."

With a shake of his head, Laxus answered, "You really are the most disgusting, worthless waste of life in the whole world."

Laxus really did want to kill his father, and he wondered if it might be for the best. There was no doubt in his mind that Ivan would probably cause trouble for all of them, especially Nikki. He'd killed enough people in Indus that the line was a little blurry, and he wasn't afraid to do it.

Ivan saw the murder in his son's eyes. "It would kill Pops, you know. For father and son to fight to the death."

Laxus knew this was the truth. Makarov still held onto some thin hope that things might someday be okay in their family, and if Laxus killed his father, he'd shatter that home and replace it with the ugly truth of how high the hate and resentment really ran between Laxus and Ivan.

His son turned back to the house. "Do you have other kids I don't know about?"

"As far as I know, no. I want to meet the boy."

"Why?"

"You're my sons."

"Let me make it easy for you. We don't need you. We're fine on our own without you. So if you came here to make Nikki a bunch of promises you have no intention of keeping, turning him against the guild, or just being a fucking terrible person, you can turn around and crawl back under the filthy little dark rock you just came from. Die for all I care-we'd all be better off if you did. You stay away from him," he angrily warned.

Laxus left his father in the park and went back inside to contend with all the emotional turmoil his father had kicked up. He was, for the most part, fairly stable in terms of his emotions, but Ivan was a subject that cut to the very core of his soul. He couldn't look at the man's face and not remember the things that brought them to where they were. The broken promises, lies, manipulation, and suffering made his heart race even to remember them.

He didn't feel like a saint, or an elite, or someone really powerful. Ivan made him feel like a pissed off kid.

There were times when he tried to figure out if Ivan was really that bad, but he was. He was truly a monster, and Laxus didn't understand why he was like that.

He heard a creak on the stairs as Lucy crept down in her pajamas. "Baby?"

"In here."

Lucy could tell just from how he was sitting with whiskey in hand that he was upset.

She didn't say anything, because she was good at knowing when one word might break him and she would never do that to him. Gently, she climbed onto his lap and embraced him tightly, holding him close as his arms encircled her.

Laxus didn't tell her why he was upset, and she didn't ask. He made a promise to himself that after the s-class trials were over, he'd try and find the person who cursed his father to see if there was a way they could break it.

The future was always worth a fight, after all.

XXX

Lucy felt strange in the house by herself after Laxus went with the other s-class wizards to get ready for the exams. He took Nikki with him, so their home was empty and quiet. This gave her a lot of time to think, do some last minute training, sketch down a thousand different strategies.

She wondered who she might have to battle, what kinds of trials awaited, and what kinds of surprises might unfold.

With a little grin, she remembered how they'd felt when Laxus showed up during the battle with Master Hades. Up to that point, she thought he was just the world's biggest jerk, but at some point, she knew he really did love the guild.

It made her feel special to know she was the first one he ever really loved, and she believed they'd be happy together no matter what the future did or didn't hold.

Being in love, she'd realized, was less about roses and kind words and more about the tenacity to dig in and stay close no matter what.

Sometimes, she wished she'd had the opportunity to introduce Laxus to her mother. She was sure her mom would have adored him. After all, Layla Heartfilia chose an uptight, powerful blond-headed man as her mate too. When she considered that, she wondered if her relationship was an example of a girl being attracted to men like their father. Laxus was tall, intimidating, and powerful, but then he was in his own way everything she'd wished she'd gotten to see in her father.

She mentally drew a parallel between Jude Heartfilia's desire to put the family business before the family, and Laxus' early desires to put the guild business before the guild family.

Yep, they were alike in a way, she decided, and she was okay with that. Because she loved her daddy and she wished even to that day that she'd gotten to be close to her father in the years before his death.

On that note, what would her father thought of Laxus?

Lucy found herself giggling as she packed a bag for the S-Class trials. She imagined Laxus and Jude trying to have a conversation, and it was so funny to her. Her father thought wizards were rough and boorish, so Lucy couldn't even imagine how he would have responded to his daughter being in a high-profile relationship with the roughest, most boorish of them all.

And then she cried, because she missed her parents, and because a girl in love wants to share that with her parents.

She decided she wasn't sure why she was even thinking about any of that and finished packing, caught a few hours of sleep, and met the other test participants at the train station.

Once they got to Tenrou Island, Erza gave them a tour of what was where. Paths were clearly marked this year-at least the ones that led to home base. One of the biggest problems during the other trial was that they took hours to regroup.

Lisanna and Nikki were the group chefs, Porlyusica and Wendy were the team medics, and everything was set up in advance.

The test participants gathered together, and they were informed that this was in part a continuation of the suspended trial as well as a new trial. Those who passed the first round during the last trial didn't have to participate in the first round of this trial.

That meant only Gajeel, Juvia, Lucy, and Freed were in the first round. Gajeel had participated as a partner and not a qualifier with Levy, and Freed and Juvia failed the first round but were requalified for the new trial.

"During the first stage, we'll have team battle, two on two. Only one the qualifiers on the winning team will move on the the second part of the trial. The teams will be decided by fate. The second round will take place tomorrow morning," Makarov announced.

Lucy took a deep breath and considered that one of the other three would be her teammate, and the other two would be her opponent. Gajeel as a partner would probably be the easiest path to victory, but she felt confident working with Juvia against the men or with Freed.

Makarov had a basket that had the four names written on it. "Mirajane, if you could do the honors."

Mirajane drew the first two names. "Team one will be…" she unfolded the pieces of paper, "Juvia and Gajeel. Which means Team Two will be Freed and Lucy!"

Freed smiled and took a step next to Lucy's side. "It seems fitting. You're practically an unofficially member of the Raijinshuu at this point," he whispered.

The first part of their challenge required them to follow a map to the battle zone, but right before Makarov set off the starting pistol, Laxus grabbed her hand and pulled her behind a tree, causing her to squeak in surprise.

He kissed her lips. "I missed you. Do you best. I love you. Be safe. I love you."

"Love you too."

The pistol sounded, and she ran off after Freed with the map he'd been given.

The two teams would follow different paths but end up at the same destination.

As Lucy and Freed followed their path, the thick branches of Tenrou Tree darkened their path. When they neared the center of the island, Freed came to a stop and put his hand out, causing her to slide to a stop.

Freed looked at her and said, "If all we had to do was fight, we could have done it there by base camp. We've passed at least ten good places we could have battled. But we're following this path. Why? Master always has a plan. There's a reason we're on this route."

A tree branch whipped out of nowhere and wrapped around his wrist.

The path ahead was suddenly blocked by vines and branches that grew to form obstructions along the way.

Suddenly, they were under attack by the trees, which held a strange, but unquestionably powerful magic.

The ground was seeped in this unfamiliar magic.

Lucy tensed and spun, trying to take in her surroundings. "I think I know. Look at the trees. There are old sword slashes, but not too old. Erza fought here. One of her opponents was Azuma, who used lost magic that involved trees. He died here on the island."

Freed drew his own sword and slashed at the branches as they descended. "That's right. So we have more than one foe."

The blonde opened the map as Freed cut away more twigs that grew out toward them. "According to this map, if we turn off the path and go this way, we'll arrive at a pond."

"Do we want to fight Juvia near water?"

She grinned devilishly and they quickly made a plan. Their opponents were nothing to sneeze at, and Gajeel was especially going to be problematic. Without a plan, they'd probably lose.

Once, they'd made their plan, she whipped out her keys. "Open, Gate of the Golden Bull! Open, Gate of the Giant Crab!"

Her two spirits appeared, wielding an axe and twin scissors, respectively, and Lucy asked, "Can you clear a way for us?"

The twigs went flying as a path opened through the rugged wooded area and closed up right behind them. When they arrived at a small pond, they nervously looked at one another, and Freed started drawing runes with his sword while Lucy's spirits covered him.

The rules of runes were simple: only Fairy Tail wizards or their allies could enter the barrier he was drawing just at the edge of the water and no one could leave until the battle was over.

Freed suddenly grinned. "I have an idea."

Lucy watched him write. "What now?"

"Magnetic runes-should make it more fun, right? We're kind of screwed if Gajeel uses iron scales. It's probably the biggest thing we need to guard against. If I magnetize the runes, he'll get stuck on the barrier if he activates them."

Lucy gave him a pat on the head. "I'm so glad you're on my team."

"Likewise. I felt like I would lose if I was paired with anyone else."

Once they finished their trap, the trick was getting Gajeel and Juvia into the runes, and Freed and Lucy set out with the two branch-cutting spirits to where they'd intersect with the path Gajeel and Juvia were on.

Gajeel smelled them near him when they came to a certain clearing. "Be careful, Juvia. Freed and Lucy are two of the biggest, brainiest nerds. They'll try to trick us. That's what nerds do. Especially Freed. You know he's written runes somewhere around here. Our biggest threat is walking into a trap."

Juvia nodded in understanding. "Juvia is paying close attention. She won't fail."

The idea that two of them were going to fail this trial was a little agonizing for Juvia, who believed in everyone who was testing. But, she knew that was part of the test; in order to move on, she had to believe in herself more than anyone.

She was glad to be with Gajeel, the person she had the longest history with.

Gajeel slashed at the tree branches with an iron arm, "Something ain't right here. These trees are alive."

"Tenrou Tree is powerful isn't it?"

"These trees don't like us."

A monster broke through the trees, trampling toward them with an arrow sticking out of his butt that neither of them noticed as they ran, unwilling to waste their effort on fighting the monstrous creature.

Freed lightly slashed at a Vulcan that had been asleep and he too ran toward them. It was a win/win scenario for them because if Juvia and Gajeel stopped to fight the monsters, then they had less energy. If they avoided the monsters, they inevitably came closer to the rune trap.

He saw Lucy wrap her whip around a tree branch and swing down to the ground, where he met her.

Freed smirked. "Such brilliance is to be expected of the woman Master Laxus chose as his."

Meanwhile, Gajeel and Juvia stopped to defeat the Vulcan, only to be cornered by the other monster.

"Juvia senses water nearby."

And the iron dragon slayer knew if he could get Juvia to the water, she would be infinitely more powerful. It was the ideal place of attack for them, so he cut a path through the woods until they arrived at the pond.

Juvia stopped short when her feet touched the water. "There's something in the water, Gajeel. Another monster?"

The shadowy form moved from one side to the other, and when the wind blew, the tree branches separated and light shined down to reveal the silhouette of a mermaid.

"Gajeel, you know what you said about not walking into traps?"

Aquarius broke the surface of the water with a splash, and Gajeel tried to back away only to find his back against a barrier.

Lucy had conveniently forgotten to mention she'd regained the Aquarius key, which worked in her favor as Juvia might have been reluctant to get near water otherwise.

The celestial spirit was glad to be back in action, and pleased with another opportunity to face off against the water wizard. Things had changed; a celestial spirit's power correlated to the power of the caster. Lucy was on a whole new level, as Aquarius knew she had two spirits running through the forest and wasn't about to pass out from exhaustion. What was a monumental feat for Lucy when she broke her old key was now simple.

Lucy ran into the clearing, dismissed all of her other spirits, and transitioned into Aquarius star form as she jumped into the water.

If anybody was going to ask, this was going to be the highlight of her whole week. She and Aquarius had been apart for so long, and after all the hell that had to unfold for them to reunite, she was so eager to fight with her again. Lucy had been frustrated because somehow all their other jobs lately had been in desserts or other places she couldn't really use her strongest spirit.

Aquarius grabbed her hand, and the water in the pond started to turn in a vortex.

Gajeel felt his stomach turn as he was swept up, effectively trapped in a box make from runes with a water cyclone inside of it.

For a few minutes, both he and Juvia were playing a loser's game while Lucy and Aquarius tossed them about.

Freed stood by outside of the runes and watched, unsure if he'd even need to do anything else.

Then, the water stilled and Juvia stood still holding her hand out in the direction of Aquarius. She had taken control of the water. "Water is Juvia," she hissed as she threw all of it back on them. A watery tendril formed and snatched Freed from outside the runes, pulling him in.

Aquarius growled, "You!"

So they were all there in the water, which Juvia had taken full control of.

Gajeel started to use his iron scales, but the magnetic runes activated and he went flying against one wall where he was pinned. He hit Freed hard with iron breath, and the green-haired wizard sank under the water. Gajeel dropped his scales and fell back in the water, although he stayed at the surface.

"Freed!" Lucy dove under the water and sank, lower, lower, and lower.

The water was pink around Freed, which attested to how violently rough the iron breath was. It tended to leave numerous abrasions and small cuts on its victims in addition to the magic shock it caused.

Freed sank to the bottom of the pond and drew his sword.

Lucy realized he didn't need help; he was only transforming into a monster. She'd heard of the Dark Ecriture: Absolute Shadow spell before, but he actually did seem like some demonic beast, even with vision distorted by water.

She decided to change her strategy up too. She shifted to Sagittarius Star Dress and Freed swam to her and put an arm around her, pointing at Gajeel as he held his fingers up. "One...two…"

Juvia and Gajeel looked down, but couldn't see much further than the surface.

Knowing there were things in the water was a little unnerving, and Aquarius waited patiently for Juvia to falter even a little.

Freed exploded from the water and flew quickly, gaining momentum and altitude. She aimed, he let her go, and then raced the magically-charged arrow to its point of impact, Dark energy encircled his fists and he and Gajeel collided hard as the arrow exploded.

"Shit!" Gajeel growled half a second before Lucy landed on his shoulders and hit him squarely on the top of his skull with a burst of regulus magic, effectively both cracking both his shoulders and pushing him down into the water.

She switched to Aries Star Dress. "Wool bomb!"

Lucy pinned Juvia against the runes with a massive amount of soggy wool. She tried to attack, but her water soaked into the wool which Lucy used to push her against the barrier until she almost couldn't breathe.

Freed emerged from the water holding Gajeel by the shirt. He dropped the runes and Aquarius threw everybody out of the water, including Freed and Lucy. She smiled at Lucy as she stared up in surprise and closed her gate. "It was good fighting at your side again."

Once the fight was over, it was getting dark, and when Freed abandoned his transformation, Lucy saw he'd actually been pretty seriously injured just by one direct hit from Gajeel. His skin was marred by countless little cuts and blood seemed to drool from the wounds.

Lucy had changed Star Dress in such rapid succession she fell to her knees and couldn't move well for a few minutes.

Gajeel laid on the ground next to Juvia and asked, "What were you saying about a trap?"

"Nothing."

"Magnetic runes, goddamned Freed."

Juvia was disappointed, but she tried hard not to show it. Somebody was going to fail, and she knew Freed had worked in the guild for years and Lucy had trained so hard over the past months. She could remember well that there were about five months in a row that they barely saw her, and when they did, she'd have bruises and blisters and calluses.

She was okay with the outcome. There was always next year, after all.

After taking back-to-back major blows from Lucy, then Freed, then Lucy, Gajeel needed a little help getting back to camp, so Juvia stood and tried to pick him up.

Lucy was in the middle of trying to do the same thing with Freed. "Juvia, if Levy can pick up Laxus...we can do this. Or…"

She summoned Taurus and Cancer, and Taurus carried the two men as Cancer helped the women fight a path through back to camp where they rejoined the others.

Laxus wasn't surprised that Freed and Lucy won, because Freed was legally classifiable as a genius and Lucy's brain was so elastic she knew ten different ways to put her socks on. What surprised him was the progression of her magic. She wasn't the strongest among her peers by a long shot, but she was growing very fast.

He was observing her while she ate dinner when he heard Gildarts' voice. "Quite a monster you have there. She's really smart, isn't she? Except when it comes to men, obviously. I hear she's sleeping with a real dick."

Laxus looked over his shoulder. "You're missing so many body parts I don't think you probably don't know what a 'real dick' even is anymore."

The old man chuckled. "You've been looking at me like you want to ask me something for the past week. What's on your mind, kid?"

Gildarts was arguably the only person who could get away with calling the Saint Wizard 'kid.'

"I don't want my grandfather to know."

"Okay."

"You're one of the world's foremost experts on breaking enchantments and curses on people. Have you heard of a wizard name Angelora?"

The older man nodded. "Probably the world's foremost expert at putting enchantments and curses on people. Your dad had some sour dealings with her."

Laxus asked, "He killed her son, so she cursed his."

It didn't take Gildarts long to figure out how that curse had manifested itself. "You guys cheated the curse with your lacrima, so at least nobody died."

The lightning dragon slayer tensed a little. "So, I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not a fucking kid anymore. If I…" He hesitated and then spat it out in one mouthful, "I don't want to pass it on."

"Like if Lucy got pregnant?"

Laxus nodded.

Gildarts reached over and ruffled his hair. "I'll help you. I think you'd be a good family guy if you had the chance. I want you to have a chance. You're a good kid, okay?"

Laxus almost protested being called a kid, but instead, he just nodded. "Thanks."

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	18. Lucy Trial! Part 2

On the night that Laxus Dreyar was born, his mother died, his father ran away, and he was given a death sentence. When he didn't cry, Porlyusica had him rushed to the hospital, and Makarov was told that the newborn probably wouldn't last through the night.

Makarov held his grandson all night because he didn't want him to be alone if he died. But, as he held the baby and watched his struggle to take every breath, he had faith in his grandson's desire to live.

He promised he would always be there for him, no matter what happened, and that if he could just make it from one day to another, he'd experience everything life had to offer.

"Someday," he said, "you're going to meet a girl and she's going to make you happy you'll be trying to kiss her and grin like an idiot at the same time."

That night on Tenrou Island, Makarov was looking for Laxus to discuss strategy for the next day and he happened upon Laxus and Lucy in the lake. They were kissing and smiling at the same time, whispering quietly in the dark. He'd never in his life seen his grandson look so perfectly _happy_.

He turned and walked back toward camp; his grandson had waited twenty-five years to be happy. Whatever felt important had become trivial, and he preferred his grandson enjoy the finer things in life now that he could.

When he got back to the camp, he met with the other s-class wizards.

"Where's Laxus?" Erza asked.

"He's not coming."

Earlier that evening, Makarov had tried to bring Laxus into the loop on their plans, but he'd been having a two-on-one match between himself and Wendy and Nikki. He found this cute, but felt it might engender strife with Romeo as there was an uncomfortable undercurrent between the Conbolts and the younger Dreyars. Makarov believed it was partly rooted in how Macao had often laughed at Laxus while he was growing up, although not in a mean way. Laxus likely still had resentment and Macao resented him right back because he was completely eclipsed by Laxus' shadow in the magic world.

That identical dynamic was starting to work in the boys. Nikki was growing by leaps and bounds in part because he was no longer sick, in part due to the dragon lacrima, and in part due to the fact he and Laxus spent hours together sometimes pumping iron and brawling because that was how they connected.

It concerned him, but he let all his children work out their own problems.

They camped overnight, and at dawn, Laxus felt his brother stir in their tent.

"It's too fucking early."

"I need to make breakfast for everyone."

Laxus laid under his blanket for a while after the boy got up, and then finally decided to get out of bed and get dressed when he smelled bacon starting to cook. By the time he made it out of the tent, Lisanna and Wendy had joined him and they were all doing separate tasks to prepare to feed the mightiest and hungriest of wizards.

Lucy was still sound asleep in a tent with some of the girls, and out of respect for the fact it was her S-Class exam, he decided not to bother her until she woke up and paid attention to him. Somehow, he felt like this made him a gentleman.

He looked around for any signs of danger, sifted through the scents in the air, but there was no sign of trouble. Watching over the camp quietly, he looked over at the kids cooking occasionally, and happened to catch his brother having a moment of sorts.

Monday through Sunday, Nikki Dreyar was a gentleman. But Wendy bent down to build the fire, and Laxus saw his brother glance down her shirt quickly, and subtly from the corner of one eye.

Nikki jerked his head away when he heard the unruly laughter of his brother and looked up to find Laxus looking dead in his eyes. The boy turned red and stammered something about eggs while Wendy looked up in question.

"What's so funny, Laxus?" Wendy asked.

Laxus innocently answered, "Nothing. I just saw something very interesting."

Nikki tried his hardest not to look up for the next hour, because there was a smug little smirk on his brother's face. The idea of his brother catching him looking at a girl was absolutely terrifying. And he quietly prayed ' _please let him not try to talk to me about it…'_

Yet every time he looked at his brother, it looked like Laxus was just absolutely dying to give him a hard time.

But, he had to go to the bathroom eventually, and after peeing, he looked over his shoulder suspiciously as he walked to the nearby stream with some soap to wash his hands.

He was shaking his hands dry when he turned and saw a huge shadow under a small tree. "Crap."

Laxus laughed and gave him a devilish smirk. "See something you like?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he nervously said. He tried to walk past Laxus, and was more or less expecting his brother to slug him on the arm, which he did. And Nikki rubbed his arm and rolled his eyes. "You're so childish."

"You got a crush on her?"

"On who?"

"Wendy. Don't play stupid with me. You've clearly noticed she's starting to fill out. Becoming a woman and whatnot."

Nikki nervously groaned. "What's wrong with you?!"

Laxus smirked. "I'm so amused right now I can't stand it. Kinda feel bad I told her not to trifle with thirteen-year-old boys."

"You what?! Why? Why would you do that to me?"

"I didn't even know you existed. Boys your age are shits, but I'm a little partial to you for some reason. Maybe because you're like me," Laxus teased.

Nikki stared straight ahead and shook his head. "You're a two hundred pound socially awkward narcissist with a violent personality and the emotional maturity of a bag of stale marshmallows. How are we alike?"

It was one of the most creative and yet sadly true insults that had ever been given to him, and Laxus found it fitting. He wished he could substitute this label for the mushier, more flattering, and somewhat untrue things published in magazines and newspapers since he toppled the government of Indus. Hero of Parisa? No, heavyweight, violent narcissist-he'd prefer that any day of the week.

"Are you going through puberty and I didn't notice?"

Nikki blinked in surprise for at least thirty seconds and then started to walk back to the group.

Laxus said, "So you like Wendy. She's kinda cute. Both of you are dragon slayers, you're both kids. I mean, she's the only female dragon slayer so it would make sense, right? The girl dragon needs a boy dragon."

"Oh my god, you're the worst person ever! I like her, okay? She likes Romeo. So whatever. You're the worst," he stammered in embarrassment.

His older brother put a hand on his shoulder, and Nikki wondered how many rocks there were on Tenrou Island that were big enough for him to crawl under. He looked up and asked, "Can you not talk to me for about a week?"

"I'll think about it." Laxus felt like he'd accomplished his purpose, so he let his brother get away and return to the task at hand.

By the time they made it back to the camp, Lucy was up and was up and dressed and stretching at the camp with Levy.

Since Laxus knew what the final trial would be and had taken part in the final prep after everyone else was asleep, he didn't separate off with her since some might later claim he'd given her information. He was reasonably confident that Lucy would make the cut and become s-class although even if she didn't, she'd still come so far in such a short time.

Lucy meanwhile finished breakfast mostly in silence and tried to mentally prepare herself for the day. Her competition was fierce, and Lucy knew it was likely a lot of them might not pass. In past years, maybe one made it at best, although this year was special because there hadn't been a successful exam in years and so many reached maturity around the same time.

During the last trial, the first trial had involved fighting for nearly everyone and the second was more a battle of wit, so Lucy expected whatever lay ahead to be mentally challenging as well as physically.

There were seven competitors: Natsu, Gray, Elfman, Cana, Lucy, Freed, and Levy.

They gathered at the center of base camp when it was time for the trial to start and Makarov said, "The final event for the S-Class exams will determine who makes the cut, and who will have to try again in the future. Know that I'm proud of all of you and that by standing here in this trial, I acknowledge your strength, skill, and growth as wizards. However, I have decided that at the most only four of you will reach S-Class status this year at the most.

"There are four golden coins hidden on this island, which is teeming with monsters, strange magic, and many other obstacles in addition to your other competitors. You all have between now and midnight to find a coin and return to base camp. If all the coins are returned before midnight, I'll shoot the signal flare indicating the trial is over.

"The rules are simple: you must work alone and if you encounter a competitor, you must fight until one of you is defeated. This trial is about your mind and your own ambitions and determination for the future. It is also a time to reflect on the what makes this guild different from all other guilds. You will have to make difficult decisions, knowing when you meet your comrade, only one of you can move forward-even if it is someone you care dearly for. If you can't be the best you there is against a comrade, then you haven't matured to the level of S-Class," Makarov explained.

The guildmates and competitors looked one to another, and wondered if they'd have the guts to do it. Lucy felt instinctively like it might be noble to let someone she cared about go ahead of her, but her second thought was doubt. They were _all_ strong wizards in their own right, and deep down, they all wanted to be one of the ones that made it.

Still, what would she do if she met Levy, one of the closest friends she'd ever had? Or Cana, who was taking this test over and over in hopes of someday completing it? What if she and Natsu ran into each other?

Their guildmaster added, "No one deserves to be S-Class more than anyone else. This test will ensure that you are capable of choosing yourself when it is necessary to do so. There's no honor in failing, unless you do so after giving your fight for your own future every ounce of might in your soul. Now go, spread apart, and take different paths. The exam begins when the pistol sounds. Go to your future!"

Lucy made quick eye contact with the others, a silent 'good luck,' and then smiled a bit at Laxus who stood by looked confidently at her, as if he had no doubts she'd come back victorious.

That made her happy.

She started off running at a fevered pace down a path towards the inner part of the island. The landscape on Tenrou Island was unquestionably unfriendly, marked by sharp rocks, abrupt cliffs, rude greenery, and that was ignoring the fact that Tenrou was completely infested with monsters.

Lucy stopped briefly when she encountered a cliff and tried to solve the first riddle - where could she find a coin? Winning was dependent on a progression of events: first, she had to decide where a coin might be, then she had to safely navigate and seize the coin, and then she had to make it back to base camp. All this had to take place without running into anyone else, or by defeating anyone she did encounter.

Considering how strong everyone else was, it was likely the act of duking it out with another competitor would tire her or injure her enough she might not be able to complete the trial anyway.

Lucy recounted all that Makarov said repeatedly and knew there were probably clues. Her mind fixed on the idea that part of this trial was reflecting on what made Fairy Tail different from all other guilds. That was something he'd said that had nothing to do with her, a fragment of information that she was supposed to connect to herself.

A monster suddenly attacked, and Lucy called her spirits, only fighting with her bow because she couldn't risk getting seriously injured. With that in mind, she had to be considerate with her spirits too, because they didn't have infinite energy or endurance either even being replenished by Tenrou Tree.

Once the monster was down, she continued along the path, only to face another interruption, and Lucy noticed the path she was on was considerably more difficult and riddled by beasts than the one she and Freed took on the prior night.

Perhaps on a whim, she stayed on this path, because the right path would _never_ be easy.

Lucy believed there was probably a coin at the top of Tenrou Tree, but she suspected everyone would come to that conclusion.

Another monster came, and another after that, and she had to stop and rest perched up in a tree.

From her place in the trees, she looked around at the thick woods. Everything on the island was seeped in magic. The trees, the water, and even the wind seemed to carry magic, and Lucy climbed higher and higher to the top of the tree.

There was a gust of wind and as the leaves parted, she saw a crumbling building far in the distance for a split second.

Lucy heard a commotion and a shout, followed by a shriek of pain. "Levy!"

Her first instinct was to run to her and save her from whatever endangered her, but if they met, they had to fight.

Lucy looked up at Tenrou Tree, knowing its magic would keep anyone from dying on the island, and she decided she had to have faith in Levy. If she didn't have faith in her and ran to her aid, they'd have to fight and Lucy could think of ten ways she could beat her.

She believed she could probably defeat Levy, Freed, Elfman, or Cana if she had to, but she really didn't want to fight any of them. Lucy didn't believe she could beat Gray or Natsu, because they were on an entirely different level and should have been S-Class long before.

She dropped down and ventured into the deeper part of the woods, where there was no path. There were cobwebs everywhere, along with monster spiders the size of dinner plates that she knew would be the subject of nightmares for years to come.

In Cancer Star Dress, she cut her way through this dark, unwalked path until she found an ancient path paved in stones that had been displaced slightly by time. Tall trees towered over and hid the ruins of a village.

Most of the buildings had mostly returned to the earth, and some shown signs of a fire.

Lucy knew this must have been the village where Mavis grew up. One of the buildings had a sign out front that said 'Mavis and Zera,' and Lucy made her way to it to find it was more like a barn than anything.

She stood there, where Mavis spent all those years alone.

There was a tugging at her spirit and she sat down and tried to imagine what it must have been like for Mavis. Everyone on the whole island died, and for the first time, Lucy wondered what happened to the bodies. Had the little girl been forced to get rid of them? It was a terrible and painful thought: a child left completely alone in a village full of corpses on an island full of monsters.

Mavis suffered; she suffered so much she created an illusion that was so important to her that she forgot Zera wasn't real..

Lucy laid there on the floor where Mavis' straw bed had long turned to dust and she stared up at the ceiling and wondered what she must have felt growing up.

The core values of Fairy Tail were born here on the island, out of the heart of a very sad little girl. She valued the bonds of her friends because she knew what it was like to not be connected to anyone. She believed in the strength of family because she'd been without one. What made Fairy Tail great was birthed through the misery and isolation of Mavis Vermillion on this island.

Lucy remembered how Laxus had transformed when he was confronted with the death of that boy in Indus. His righteous indignation echoed something old and centered somewhere in the core of every Fairy Tail wizard.

The most profound realization hit her as she sat there and looked up at a single ray of light pouring in through the cracked ceiling.

Fairy Tail was a haven for broken hearts, and it was a place those struggling with crippling pain could come and be safe and learn how to turn that pain into strength to face the challenges of the future. She thought about herself, she thought about the others she knew. As an S-Class wizard and a leader of the guild, one of the most important responsibilities was to help keep the guild safe and nurturing for those that would follow.

She thought about Indus, and how in that strange foreign place, almost no one had any power while those who did were evil. The truth was that most people had no power, and many who did made poor use of it.

Lucy thought about their wars: about Alvarez, about Tartaros, about Grimoire Heart, about Oracion Seis…

Their guild had unarguably altered the course of human history for everyone everywhere and there were so few of them. Being S-Class meant holding a share of that responsibility and being one of the ones willing to say 'no, we're not going to let that happen.' It meant having the strength to protect and defend people who couldn't protect or defend themselves, and sharing in the burden of looking after the others in the guild who were struggling to find strength in their own pain.

Lucy stood up and dusted herself off and noticed on the little, dusty, molded dresser there was an envelope that didn't have any dust on it or any signs of age, like it had just been put there. She picked it up and opened it and found directions with the words 'Gold Coin #3' written across the top.

The directions were written in Laxus' surprisingly incredible handwriting, and the first instruction was, "Walk down cobblestone path to the well at the center of the town, and go down the red path." There were no other instructions visible, but she'd seen magic like this before and knew she'd only see the next instruction when she completed the first one.

Lucy found these instructions cryptic and stupid, but this _was_ a testing exercise.

When she got to the old well, there were five paths that led to it, and down one, she could see a tree with red flowers, so she followed it carefully and slowly because the path became overgrown after a fifty yards.

The path dead-ended into a cave, and as she stood at the entrance, she could _hear_ the sounds of something huge inside. She slid her bag off of her shoulder and got a lantern and then took a deep breath as she descended into the dark cave.

The next _four_ hours were spent following cryptic instructions through a labyrinth of tunnels, during which she got lost no less than six times. The fact that the tunnels were full of evil demon bats, a few spiders bigger than she was, and other creatures one doesn't want to meet under any circumstances ever made it considerably more frustrating and exhausting. It was one fight after another after another after another, and being constantly on her guard and having to come up with different strategies and execute them time and again was exhausting.

Even though Tenrou Tree kept her magic container from running out, the process was absolutely exhausting and it was hard on her nerves. After an hour in the dark with the spiders, she'd doubted her determination, but after four, she'd gone through so much she couldn't bear the idea of giving up.

And then she slipped and fell down a chasm that was inside of the cave and as she tumbled down the razor-sharp rocks, they cut into her as she fell more than eight hundred feet to a pit deep under Tenrou Island.

She was bleeding, bruised, and everything hurt. To make matters worse, her lantern was broken somewhere or another and the only light was the eerie bluish glow of rocks that had been seeping in magic power since they were formed.

The next instruction read:

" _Fight monster."_

Lucy felt anger boil in her gut as she took her little miniature first aid kit and cleaned up her bleeding cuts. "Laxus, I am going to give you a black eye when I finally see your stupid, handsome face again," she growled.

The ground rumbled and then there was a roar, and a gigantic monster stirred from the floor of the pit. It looked something like a combination of a gecko and a snake, but was twenty feet tall and evidently pissed.

She was already so tired, but she had to have a strategy, she had to fight, and then she had to climb to get back up to the top.

What confused her was that the monster appeared to be wearing a necklace, but when the beast dove to bite her, Lucy saw the gold coin was tied around his neck with a small chain.

"Sagittarius! Loke!"

Her faithful spirits appeared, and Lucy said, "Loke, if this thing lives down here, it's probably sensitive to light. Can you blind it?"

Sagittarius fired a series of magically charged arrows, and Loke distracted the monster with a blindingly bright Regulus attack while Lucy used Cancer Star Form to wield two short swords.

Lucy had been so wary of the swords at first to the point she almost never used them because swords were a decidedly lethal form of attack. They were more effective than trying to win through blunt force magic, and against some enemies-especially ones that weren't human-a little hacking was pretty necessary.

The blonde stabbed one of the swords into the back right foot of the monster and found its scales were quite hard.

The blue monster shrieked and thrashed around violently as Lucy attempt to climb its scales. She was thrown off, and over twenty feet into the rocky wall of the pit, where a shark rock cut into her side and left her on the ground with blood oozing from the wound.

"O-Owwww…" she hisseed.

Loke turned quickly. "Lucy!"

"I'm okay!"

The monster's body snaked up through the air and when it dove to attack, Sagittarius filled it's head with arrows, although this only made the monster angry. When it spun to attack her spirit, Lucy made a mad dash as she switched to Taurus Star Dress for the strength and reached for her whip. She wrapped it around the monster's neck and pulled hard and suddenly.

The head smashed into the ground hard and Lucy called a third spirit. "Taurus!"

The bull came out fighting, and smashed his ax into the skull of the monster several times until it jerked free and sent Lucy flying back into the rock wall, swinging it's tail at her spirits, all of which were able to dodge it.

It snapped down at her again and she jumped at just the right second, narrowly avoiding the opportunity to test whether or not a fairy could actually die on Tenrou Island.

Lucy climbed about ten feet up the rocks and then jumped onto the monster when it struck at her again, gripping the hard scales of the beast as it thrashed violently, trying to buck her off. It slammed itself into the rocks again, tearing a scream for Lucy's lips as she took a blow to the skull that left her ears ringing and the world blurry and white for a few seconds.

Her mind sifted through different strategies, but most of them were bad and none of them really made sense.

Finally, still holding on for dear life, she said, "Taurus! Your ax!"

Her spirit threw the ax and she caught it with both hands as the monster thrashed violently, this time hard enough it probably would have crushed her had she not allowed herself to be thrown off. This time, she hit the rock wall feet-first, absorbed the impact with kinetics magic, and exploded forward with the ax, which she cleaved right through the skull and brain of her enemy in a blow that she threw all her remaining magic into.

It crumpled to the ground dead, and Lucy's spirits vanished as she passed out on top of its head.

XXX

This was how Lucy spent her afternoon: bloody, bruised, and unconscious at the bottom of a pit for below Tenrou Island.

The other three coins were hidden above ground, and violence dotted the island here and there. Levy and Freed met, and Levy defeated Freed in a battle of script, runes, and wits. It was the type of match only they could have had, and in the end, Freed was satisfied even with losing.

Cana and Elfman ran into each other at Mavis' grave, and Elfman defeated her.

Elfman ran into Gray five minutes after and, already beaten up, went down within minutes.

This narrowed the field to Lucy, Gray, Natsu, and Levy, which was exactly four.

There were four sets of instructions and therefore, an adventure for each coin. One set of directions had been hanging from the top branch of Tenrou Tree and was plucked by Natsu early on.

The second was hidden near Mavis' grave, and passed from Cana to Elfman to Gray.

The third was in Mavis' old house, which Lucy found.

The last set of directions was at the highest peak of land, where Levy and Freed had encountered one another.

So these four spent their afternoon and early evening trying to follow the instructions, acquire the coin, and then make it back to base camp. Each and every one of them had to cross difficult terrain, fight monsters, climb, swim, stumble in the dark, and so forth for hours.

Most of this transpired while Lucy was unconscious in a dark pit with a dead monster, but when she woke up, everything hurt, her ears were still ringing, and she was really glad she could still move.

She reached for her keys and summoned Horologium. "What time is it? Did I fail? I have until midnight, right, so if I have time to get back to camp, I can still make it."

Horologium said, "It's five minutes after ten in the evening."

Lucy looked up and frowned, but she had a full magic container and enough determination to seize the future.

Lucy pulled the chain from around the monster's neck and pocketed the coin before using Capricorn and Taurus Star Dress to begin her ascent. The smell of the monster's dried blood made her nose twitch a little in disgust, but she'd worry about that when she got back to camp. Her fingers scraped on the rocks repeatedly, but she didn't stop because she had less than two hours to make it back to camp and getting out of the pit would take at least an hour of that time, even using Star Dress to climb with superhuman speed.

Her muscles practically cried in protest, and her joints and bones groaned from the bruising that covered much of her torso. This was what it cost to make it to the future, and she was determined. Her determination was no longer a joke of stubbornness; it was a force to be reckoned with and she would not fail in this.

The exit from the cave was just on the other side of the pit, so she broke out into what seemed like shockingly bright light from the full moon.

In this light, she could see her watch and saw she had twenty-seven minutes to cover almost two miles of dense forestation. Her first instinct was to just start running, but she stopped to look at her map because that was foolhardy. She might be able to make it through a forest, but a forest full of monsters was another issue entirely.

It was three miles if she ran around the beach, but three miles in sand wasn't really a walk in the park either. She wasn't confident she'd make it, and there was no guarantee she might not run into a creepy-crawly there either.

She considered her Star Forms:

She used Leo and Cancer Star Forms and held the glowing gold blades in her hands as she resolved to make a sprint through the forest. In this moment, she was very glad she'd spent so much time of her training just running, because without endurance, she'd have been done right there.

Lucy memorized the path she intended to take in her mind. There were probably less monsters on one path than another, and if she found one, she had to stab and run.

She slashed furiously at branches, twigs, and vines in her path as she pushed her legs into overdrive.

Another giant spider blocked her path and she never slowed down as she crashed through it with a slash.

Her path abruptly ended as she knew it would and she leapt off a cliff, absorbed the energy, and used it to increase the speed of her sprint as she broke through the woods to another path.

At base camp, Laxus looked up. She was coming; he could feel it. It was a bit of a nail-biter because at 11:57, she still wasn't back.

The others made it back throughout the afternoon and night. Natsu was first, completing the trial at three o'clock in the afternoon. Levy and Gray accidentally ran into each other on the way in, and after a long fight right in front of camp, Gray eliminated her from the trial. Levy wasn't so upset because she was proud of how far she'd come, but he wasn't particularly happy with himself because if they'd just taken different paths, they both would have passed.

Lucy came through the came like a streak and slid to a stop at Makarov's feet at 11:59, coin in hand. She was out of breath and in considerably worse shape than anyone else, but she'd completed the trial.

Makarov took the coin when she dropped it in her hand and looked at his stopwatch. "Well done!"

"I made it?"

The old man nodded. "With less than a minute to go."

It took quite awhile for her to catch her breath, and then finally stood and looked around the camp. Everyone seemed so happy that it was hard to tell who passed and who didn't. The ones who didn't make it took it with grace, and Makarov told them how proud he was of everyone while Wendy and Porlyusica tended to her somewhat extensive list of injuries.

Makarov was satisfied with the results of the trial. Nine entered the trial, and only three passed. He expected Natsu and Gray to pass unless they ran into one another, but Lucy was somewhat of a dark horse. It had been about a year since Lucy and Laxus began their peculiar adventure, and Makarov had watched them both transform.

They were growing together into better versions of themselves they might not ever have become otherwise.

Lucy ran and jumped into her boyfriend's arms once Wendy finished her grand work, a rare public show of affection, and he hugged her back, an even rarer sight. She practically screamed in his ear from excitement, and his sensitive hearing caused him to flinch as he held her.

"Congratulations," he said, formally, but with great sincerity and meaning.

"Thank you," she whispered.

He opened his eyes and cut them to one side as she continued hugging his neck. "Is this going to be one of those things where you're so happy it makes you cry? I can't tell you how confusing that is for me."

Lucy kissed him quickly on the lips. "You big idiot, I love you."

Laxus didn't answer her in front of everyone, but threw her over his shoulder and carried her off toward the lake. "How about a bath?"

"Do I smell that bad?"

"You smell like you were laying in bed with the Halika monster. You're a picky, snot-nosed former rich girl, so I know you noticed how it smelled, right?"

Lucy crinkled her nose. "It was unreal. I don't even know how to describe the scent."

"It's like a sack full of rotting intestines sprinkled with feta cheese."

"Ewww, but pretty accurate. Is that how I smell?"

Laxus grabbed her bag from next to her tent as he turned down the path to the lake. "No chance in hell I'm going to tell my girl she smells like rotting flesh and cheese. But I'm not going to deny it either."

They took a bath together, and when they were relaxing in the water, he asked, "Are you tired?"

"My body is a little exhausted."

Lucy sat next to him and smiled softly at him.

Laxus smiled back and leaned his head down onto hers. Sometimes, he couldn't believe he really had a girlfriend, or that he had such a fantastic woman at his side. It was like since she'd tumbled into his world, he'd been eager for life. Lucy made him excited about all kinds of things that had nothing to do with magic, and she helped break down some of his intricately-crafted emotional walls.

"I caught Nikki looking at Wendy's boobs earlier. Made my fucking day."

Lucy had secretly been hoping they'd start liking one another, but pretended the thought had never occurred to her. "Oh really? That's surprising. You weren't weird about it, were you?" She looked up at his face and sighed. "You were. Please don't give him a hard time. It's embarrassing enough to have a crush at that age."

Laxus was actually shaping up to be a good brother, although Lucy wondered if he realized how much like his grandfather he acted at times. Lucy decided she wouldn't tell him because she felt like he might have some kind of Dreyar crisis at the idea he was turning into Makarov.

"So my dad showed up on the day Gramps announced the exam," he abruptly said.

"What?! H-How?!"

Laxus explained everything that had happened, and Lucy suddenly knew why Laxus hadn't let Nikki out of his sight at all lately. He and Gildarts were going to go north and try to find out if the curse could be broken, and he was planning on taking Nikki since he didn't have school and he'd be safer on a dangerous mission than at home. Laxus believed his father would do something to Nikki if he was left at home.

"So, you want to come?"

Lucy nodded. "Of course. I'm S-Class now."

"Good. I'll stop going easy on you. I'm going to invite Wendy."

"Why?"

Laxus smirked. "The experience would be good for her."

Yep, just like Makarov, she noted.

"Wendy likes Romeo. She really does and you should leave them alone," she said, feeling obligated to play the part of the responsible, non-meddling adult despite her own feelings.

"How do you know?"

Lucy swam to the edge and pulled herself up. "I'm the girl she talks to. Look, they're so young and it's cute. Can you please stop telling her boys just want to touch her tits. Not every kid is you. You...are you. There are normal kids in the world."

Laxus followed suit, and Lucy was drying off when she stopped and grinned at him. "Oh, I get it. You're so cute, Laxus, trying to help your brother get the girl he likes. That's actually really adorable. You think Romeo is just a little wild pervert of a boy but Nikki is a good kid just because he's your brother. You believe in your brother. Awww..."

Laxus visibly flinched. "I changed my mind."

His girlfriend reached up and pinched his cheek. "Such a cute brother."

Laxus' eyes progressively narrowed more and more, and when he finally closed his eyes in sheer annoyance, he shoved her back in the lake.

Lucy swam to the surface and screamed, "LAXUS DREYAR!"

"How cute am I now?" he asked.

It was her instinct to scream like a banshee, but she knew a far more potent way to combat his attitude. "Still the cutest brother ever!"

Laxus picked up her bag that had her clean clothes and threw it so it hung from a high branch in a nearby tree.

"Laxus! Laxus, you can't be serious! Wait! I need my clothes!"

"Still cute?"

"Nope. It's a shame, I was hoping we could celebrate but I'm pissed off now."

His eyes widened in understanding and lightning struck the tree branch. Laxus caught the bag and handed it out to her. Lucy got dressed and he waited until he realized she was putting _all_ her clothes back on.

"There's no celebration, is there?"

"Nope. I'm really sore, sorry. I just wanted my clothes."

Laxus huffed, "Looks like I'm celebrating by myself."

"Is it really a celebration if you're doing it alone?" she asked.

"You really _are_ kind of awful whenever you win anything." He wandered off, mumbling something about an "...S-Class Tease."

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	19. Lucy Meddles!

Laxus licked and then sucked the newly-inked skin on her back.

Lucy shivered.

In her early life as a proper little heiress, she'd been fascinated by tattoos, and even before she got with Laxus, she knew they were a bit of a turn-on for her. Year after year since she left home, she considered what kind of tattoo she'd get if she ever had the guts to do it.

In Hargeon, when they were on their way home from the S-Class trial, Lucy finally succumbed and Laxus went down right with her, because he liked tattoos, on himself and especially on women. It had been painful, but her threshold for pain was dramatically different from that of a normal person.

She now had a dark blue dragon breathing yellow thunder tattooed across her left shoulder blade.

He also had a fresh tattoo on his back, but his was of the coupled sun and crescent moon, reminiscent of the Zodiac.

Laxus' eyes watched her carefully from behind, his eyes drawn to how her long blonde ponytail moved, pulling his eyes to the tattoo every time she moved her head. "You know those magazine ads for that drug that warn readers to go to the hospital if they have an erection lasting more than four hours?"

"Yeah, why?"

"You and this tattoo are going to literally kill me."

Her response to this was to grin and turn quickly, pushing him back onto the bed. She crawled on top of him and leaned down. "Again?!"

"Please."

Lucy as a confident, sexy woman was just everything in his world. She was beautiful and she was dangerous, and she carried herself accordingly. Looking at her now, he couldn't imagine how unhappy she would have been had she tried to live the life of an heiress. She was ambitious, strong, and she had so much potential and intelligence that he couldn't be her man and not be continually impressed with her.

They really weren't a 'romantic' couple. They had a great relationship, they were happy, but they didn't really spend a lot of time on sweet-nothings and grand gestures. Lucy felt like she preferred it this way, as she couldn't imagine Laxus actually trying to romance her, but she knew he was loyal, he was strong, and that he really loved her and wanted to keep her at his side forever.

Laxus reached up for her breasts and she grabbed both of his hands and squeezed them.

He had an appetite for sex, and she took good care of him. Usually. She did occasionally turn him down and on one occasion afternoon, took to spraying him with a little water bottle to make him leave her alone.

After their morning romp, she went back to sleep and he went downstairs to satisfy another type of hunger. He made an enormous sandwich and was eating it as if he had never eaten in his life when Nikki came in with his sheets. He looked frazzled, upset, and a little crazy.

Nikki stuffed them into the washing machine with shaking hands, put five times more soap than was necessary, and pressed the button.

Laxus took another bite of his sandwich.

"Don't ask," he quickly huffed.

His brother quickly swallowed. "You had a wet dream?"

"I said don't ask!"

"You looked very confused and distressed."

"Shut up!"

The younger started to storm out when Laxus asked, "Did anyone ever like...talk to you about sex?"

Nikki paused and turned. "I wasn't supposed to really live long enough to grow up, so my mom kind of forgot I guess. And then I didn't have anyone else who talked to me over there so no."

Laxus felt a strangely high level of discomfort. When all this started, he thought he'd just let the kid live with him, but actually being responsible for a teenager was difficult. Teenagers had complicated emotional needs and were in a state of transition that made them moody. His brother had moments where he was a very sweet kid and moments where he was an insulting, awkward, shy half-adult.

Teenagers came with neither warning labels nor instruction manuals. And if they did, Laxus knew he probably would have ignored both.

They stared at each other while Laxus finished his sandwich and considered his life in its entirety. He tried to think around the problem in a way that it could be someone else's responsibility, but in the end, he knew it was his job. After all, even though Makraov loved and liked the boy and was slowly building a relationship with him, Nikki didn't know him like he knew Laxus. Having 'the talk' with Makarov was honestly one of his worst, most awkward memories.

Since they were set to leave in the morning on their next adventure, he finished his sandwich, and then made his way to a bookstore and wandered to a wall of books about the coming of age. He flipped through them for quite a while.

He made a careful selection, went home, and left the book on his brother's bed while he was in the park across the street playing kickball with some neighborhood kids.

XXX

On the way to Alvarez, Laxus was grateful to have Wendy in the group. One of the best benefits of bringing her was that she could cast troia on Laxus and on the long train ride north, this was indispensable.

Gildarts evidently preferred sleep while he travelled, so he sat next to the window on one side of the compartment, and Laxus sat up reading a newspaper. Lucy, Wendy, and Nikki sat on the other side. This was really the best way to make everyone fit comfortably.

Lucy went to sleep after a while, leaning on the separator wall, and Nikki spent most of the ride that morning looking out the window, watching the countryside as it passed by.

Wendy eventually went to sleep and her body slumped to one side until her head came to rest on Nikki's shoulder.

An hour or so later, Wendy made a contented sigh and snuggled closer in her sleep.

Laxus peered over the newspaper at his brother. "Seeing how red your face is right now makes me believe in the theory of spontaneous human combustion."

"Shut up," he whispered as he tried hard not to react, keeping his gaze on the window.

Wendy drooled all over his shoulder and he didn't dare complain or move until they had to switch trains.

One train, then another, then another...through snow-capped mountains and lush fields they traveled. Sometimes they slept, sometimes they played cards. Gildarts told them wonderful stories about his adventures in the high magic world, and about how he and Laxus used to go on missions often during his teenage years.

Gildarts was sociable, a little rowdy, but very kind. He was the kind of guy that could make everyone feel comfortable and safe. Lucy noticed even Laxus was relaxed around him, and whenever they were away fro Magnolia together, he was always tense, always watchful.

The older man teased Laxus relentlessly about Lucy, about being a saint wizard, about being a brother, and about 'playing house.' The dragon slayer sulked, but he took it like a champ - a cursing, annoyed, rude champ. He spent much of the trip with his headphones on blasting music.

During a peaceful moment when the elder fairy slept, Wendy asked, "Why can't Charla come on any of the missions we go on, Laxus?"

Laxus looked from Lucy, to Wendy, then to Nikki. "I hate cats. Big ones, little ones, all of them. I especially hate cats that talk. And of the cats that talk and maybe all cats everywhere, yours is absolutely _the worst_."

"So you don't just hate cats...you hate _my_ cat. Specifically," she said.

Laxus slumped down a little and looked out the window. "Yes."

Wendy wanted to argue, but she didn't. Laxus and Carla just seemed like personalities that weren't meant to mix.

There was a boat ride, and then after that, three more trains.

After what felt like a lifetime, they arrived in the picturesque town of Amaris, Alvarez. It was mid-summer, and the town was at the heart of a fertile valley nestled between high mountain peaks. Springs of fresh mountain water cut across the vibrantly green grassy plain, which was marked by crops and orchards and tons of trees covered in fluffy-looking blue flowers. The air was fresh, and the breeze was a little cool under the warm summer sun.

"I smell medicinal herbs. I think they must grow a lot here," Wendy noted.

Lucy hefted her bag over her shoulder. "What a beautiful, quiet place."

The town seemed for the most part to be old, and the streets and buildings were built using smooth stones from the rivers and mountains nearby.

The blonde looked up at Laxus and said, "This would be a good place to get away for a while."

Laxus looked agitated, and he didn't answer her. She was worried he was about to tell her he sensed evil or that the town was an illusion, or that there was a giant demon about to try and eat them, but his annoyance had nothing to do with their location.

Briefly, he ducked behind a corner and when he returned, he was holding Romeo by the collar. "I found this," Laxus said.

Everyone turned to face Romeo, and the boy defensively said, "No way you can all go on an adventure and I stay at home!"

Gildarts gave him a pat on the head. "And now we have three kids. Our family is growing so fast."

Wendy beamed at him. "Romeo! I'm glad you're here!"

They were so far away from home it was too late to really do anything about it, although Romeo would inevitably face the wrath of his father, Laxus, and Makarov upon his arrival home. With no pressing or immediate danger, they all ate at a restaurant and then set out to explore while Gildarts attempted to find a good place for them to stay.

The kids explored the town together, but with great tension as the boys slugged each other of headbutted every time Wendy turned around.

Lucy and Laxus didn't go far enough that they were ever out of range of Laxus' senses, but he did manage to pull her behind a bakery into a dim but surprisingly clean alley. His lips were on hers in an instant, and she melted on the spot, giving him no resistance as he lifted her up. Legs wrapped around his waist, she tilted her head up and moaned as he sucked on her neck.

"I don't think anyone would see us," he whispered.

Lucy looked down one way, then the other. "Are you sure?"

"I'll be quick."

"Is that supposed to be a selling point?"

He laughed and started to undo his pants. "This is so exciting. You're the most amazing woman ever."

A few minutes later, he leaned against her as she was pressed against the wall, panting in satisfaction he tossed a used condom in a nearby trashcan.

At some point, someone told Lucy he'd be a bad influence, and there she was, tattooed, wild, and glowing in post-coital bliss an alley in some foreign land. Bad influence indeed!

They rejoined the others and Gildarts took them to a cottage that was being rented out travellers.

Once they arrived, they settled in and because there were two beds each in three bedrooms, there was squabbling about the sleeping arrangements. Laxus wanted to be in a room with Lucy, but that meant Wendy had to room with a man, and when Romeo volunteered, Gildarts slapped him upside the head and told them the girls would be in one room, Laxus and Nikki would be in a room, and he'd take Romeo.

Everyone was unsatisfied by this conclusion, including Gildarts.

After a long restful afternoon, Lucy and Laxus went back into town for basic groceries to set up for the week only to return and find Wendy reading a book in peace and no sign of boys anywhere. She decided to join them in the kitchen, grateful for a break.

At Wendy's request, Gildarts had taken the boys outside to fight him. He was happy to rough them up, she was happy they weren't trying to punch each other out while she was trying to relax, and she felt like it was a good solution for everyone.

Laxus, Lucy, and Wendy were in the kitchen alone together, which brought back memories of Indus. War buddies shared a deep and nearly unbreakable bond with one another, and even after Indus, there was a connection among them. Together, they'd made a difference, face difficult odds, and turned the world upside down.

Apart, they were each like older siblings, but whenever Laxus and Lucy were together, they seemingly took on almost parent-like qualities. Almost.

They tried to start on dinner, and Lucy felt proud of them for being able to clean and prepare chicken without having to ask Nikki for help. It was amusing at times how inept she and Laxus were in the kitchen, but they were slowly making progress.

Lucy always felt happy when they were together, like they were all secretly playing family and no one dared to acknowledge it was just a game.

"Are you glad Romeo is here too?" Lucy asked.

Wendy nodded. "He's so daring in a way. He reminds me Natsu, always taking risks. He'll be strong someday like that, I think."

Laxus made a somewhat disgusted face. "If you want to know how Romeo is going to turn out, just take a good look at Macao."

Wendy thought about it and asked, "Does that mean you're going to turn out like Ivan?"

"Ouch," Lucy laughed, more than a little amused at the hole he'd talked himself into.

Wendy smiled and looked out the window. "Nikki is nice. Romeo is nice. But for some reason, whenever they get around each other, they're both idiots. Why is that?"

Lucy and Laxus looked at one another, a little stupefied by the idea that Wendy didn't know they were being idiots over her. Wendy was clearly completely innocent to what was going on, and seemed a little annoyed with the two boys and their shenanigans.

"No clue," Lucy answered.

Lucy had no doubt that Wendy was the whole reason Romeo decided to sneak onto the train and stalk them all the way to Alvarez. If Wendy had been with them and no one else, he probably would have left them alone, but no way it made sense in his little mind to let Wendy go on a trip for an unknown amount of time with Nikki.

Yet, even though Wendy liked him, he would pretend he didn't all day long.

During this conversation, Lucy realized she and her boyfriend had resolved most of their own relationship problems and were now entertaining themselves by meddling in the dramatic affairs of three kids. At times, she felt like a traitor to Romeo for her bias toward the little Dreyar.

When Wendy went up to their room, Lucy looked up at her boyfriend. "We're in really deep here."

"It's addictive. I can't stop. I don't want to."

Once they had all their food cooking, he pointed out the window. "The witch lives on that mountain there. We have kind of a big party. We don't know what's up there. I figure you and I will climb up tomorrow and see what's going on. I doubt it'll be as easy as asking some old hag to break a curse."

Lucy sat up on the counter and nodded. "That makes sense."

The blonde suddenly wrapped her arms around him, and he was stiff for a second, but then melted around her and held her close. "It's okay, you know. I'll stay with you no matter what."

"You have no choice at this point. You have the tattoo. If you ever left me, whenever you got a new boyfriend, he'd ask about your tattoo and you'd have to say, 'I used to fuck a dragon,' and he'd look at you in all of your tattooed, muscular, whip-wielding, S-Class badass self, and run for his damn life," Laxus answered.

She laughed and rolled her eyes. "You make it sound like I'm intimidating."

Laxus put his hands on her hips. "A girl like you? You'd scare a normal guy half to death."

"Seriously?"

"You're an _animal_ in bed. I really think you might hurt somebody who didn't know what they were getting themselves into."

Lucy worriedly asked, "I'm not normal? How did I not know this?"

Laxus leaned down. "You've only been with me, and I like you like that. You'd terrify some normal guy. You're powerful and strong-willed and smart. Most men can't handle a woman like you."

"And you?"

He pulled her hips against his. "I think I've proven I'm capable."

Lucy was grateful for this; Laxus never, ever, not even for one second, tried to force her into the traditional role of a woman. He encouraged her to be strong, independently-minded, and courageous in every facet of their lives together.

It was ironic in a way that the man that helped her unlock her potential as a wizard also exposed the vulnerable, feminine side of her as well. In between gouging out eyes and killing monsters and overthrowing governments, they snuggled, and she fought the urge to think about the preferred future in which they have a family since it was out of reach.

Lucy smiled softly and reached up to touch his face. "If you can't break the curse, it's okay. This is enough."

Laxus let her go and said, "What if you accidentally get pregnant? What if we're fine, but five years from now, Wendy or whoever ends up pregnant? That stuff happens. As long as this curse is on us, something terrible is going to happen in this family, it's only a matter of when and how."

Really, Lucy counted him as being courageous for how he approached the curse. He didn't ignore it and hope for the best; he made plans. He was right. Eventually, disaster was going to strike, and he was determined to protect their family from further damage, at least as far as he and the brother were concerned.

She held him tightly for a while, but their moment was interrupted by the tired boys and Gildarts coming back into the house due to the smell of food.

That night when they separated off into their rooms, three separate conversations took place on the same topic:

In Gildarts' room, the old man spent a while teasing him about Wendy, but then Romeo said, "I think Nikki likes her too. I can't stand his face."

The old man laughed. "I think he does too. Are you jealous?"

Romeo shook his head, which was a lie and both men knew it. "I really hate his guts."

"Hate's a pretty strong word to use for a guild mate. A girl isn't really worth fighting over. Chances are, you'll piss her off so much she realizes you're both idiots and neither one of you get the girl. Ten years from now, you guys are best pals and represent the strength of the guild," Gildarts answered.

The younger narrowed his eyes. "He's an asshole."

"I hate to break it to you, but if you're a male and you're thirteen, you're an asshole. No exceptions."

"You don't get it. I've been in this guild my whole life. I grew up here. I've worked hard...I mean sometimes. I study magic, I train, and I look up to Natsu. I'm not trying to be my fucking dad-a wash up, and a loser. So then this stupid pretty boy shows up and everybody thinks he's so special because he's a Dreyar. And then he's a fucking dragon slayer on top of that? Then Wendy too?" Romeo confessed.

Gildarts listened intently as he sat on his bed with his legs crossed, facing Romeo. He considered all this for a while, and while Romeo did have a decent complaint against the world, who didn't?

"Romeo, let me just be real with you because I think it'll help you. Your dad loves you. He 'washed up' because he wanted to make sure you had a dad. He didn't take the dangerous missions or the long jobs...he pays his bills and raises his son. You shouldn't be ashamed of that. Nikki and Laxus have gone through life without ever knowing what it's like to have a father who loves them."

Romeo crossed his arms and leaned against the headboard. "I'd trade it all to be strong."

"That mentality will lead you down down some dark roads to some scary places, Romeo."

"So? I'm not going to let some punk pass me up."

Gildarts shook his head. "Romeo, magic is sort of like money. You can work hard and get rich by yourself, but people from some families are born with tons of it. The Dreyars may be the most powerful bloodline in the world. But that name comes with a lot more than power, so don't let that make you wish you were somebody else. Everyone who has that blood pumping through their veins has paid a price."

In the Dreyar room, the cursed men were doing what cursed people do on a quiet evening.

"I will destroy you," the elder said.

"I'd like to see you try. You'll be begging for mercy when I'm done with you," the younger replied as he shuffled the deck of cards. "Crazy Eights?"

"Fine."

They were both sitting on Nikki's bed, legs crossed.

There was a bag of lollipops on the bed, and in this moment of badassery, Laxus was sucking on a strawberry lollipop as he prepared to defeat his brother at cards. Cursed or not, talking about it got them nowhere and Laxus had resolved only to tell his brother about the curse after they'd learned whether or not it could be broken.

They played in comfortable silence for quite a while, but Nikki finally spoke. "I have a question about the book."

Laxus tensed, but one question probably wouldn't be bad. "Okay."

"Do you think you're different because of the lacrima?"

"Sexually?"

The elder bit down on his lollipop nervously and crunched it between his teeth as he tried to formulate an answer. He reflected briefly on how complicated and worry-inducing it really was to look after a kid, and it made him infinitely grateful for his grandfather's patience.

"I honestly don't know. Before I got the lacrima, my body wasn't healthy enough so nothing had ever happened down there. After, I felt like I was the best at getting hardons at the most inappropriate times. Dragons are carnal beasts, so...did you get turned on by something weird?"

Nikki shook his head furiously, and then sighed. "Kind of."

Laxus looked up. "It's fine. What was it?"

"Ugh, no."

"C'mon. I went through a long period where every I smelled blood I'd get an erection. Can't be worse than that."

His brother stared at him and sighed. "That is exactly the problem."

Laxus shrugged. "Life as a dragon. You haven't even touched the surface of weird shit that is going to happen to you because you've biologically been fused with something that isn't human. It's really not as great as people make it out to be, but it's better than dying young from congenital heart disease."

They went back to playing cards for a while, and his brother asked, "Can I ask another question?"

He nodded.

"How old were you the first time? It's okay if you don't answer."

"...I had sex? Fifteen. Not really the best age. If you end up with Wendy and that happens, she'll only be fourteen and I will beat you within an inch of your life."

Nikki looked down at his cards. "Back home, I used to go to church a lot. People will usually not beat the crap out of someone in a church. Kind of a safe place. They taught it was only for married people."

Laxus blinked in surprise. "Church happens to be one of my favorite places to beat the crap out of people. It's usually the only time I go. But...church is a thing in Indus?"

"Everyone goes."

"Huh. That's kind of surprising."

"Have you ever gone to church?" the boy asked.

"Do funerals or beatings count?"

"No."

Nikki played a card. "It's not bad to believe in something. I think having faith kept me from being angry."

Laxus shrugged. "The only time I've ever been in a church is either when I'm destroying it or when someone dies. I like to keep it like that. Separation of church and Laxus is very important."

Cursed or no, they actually _did_ enjoy being around one another. They were very different in a lot of ways, but had similarities that were far more important

"Do you really plan on not having sex until you're hitched?"

His brother nodded.

Laxus snorted. "Bet you don't make it. Five years from now, you'll be wanting to hump everything that has a pulse-and maybe some things that don't. You'll probably be tall with blue eyes. Women will practically beg you."

"Yeah, well, not everyone is a perverted pig like you….ow!"

Directly downstairs, Lucy and Wendy were settling into a bedroom when they heard a thump and then several knocking noises, a crash, then the shake of someone crashing into a wall.

Wendy asked, "Is everything okay?"

"That's my house everyday. It gets more frequent and severe as they 'bond,' if that's the word we're going to use for it. I like to think punching each other in the stomach is like their way of hugging," Lucy nonchalantly answered.

The girl grimaced. "Guys are kind of dumb, aren't they?"

The blonde sat on her bed with Plue in her lap as she tried to find a way to describe men in a more flattering way without lying. And then she gave up. "They really are, but it's not so bad."

Wendy groaned and flopped down onto her back. "Lucy, I want Romeo to kiss me."

"...why?"

"He's so cute, and so brave, and so strong. My heart races whenever I get near him and I get nervous. He held the door open for me today. I think he likes me, but he won't say it. And then he acts like he doesn't."

Lucy felt bad having a contrary opinion, and she felt even worse for meddling. "Why don't you guys just talk about it?"

Wendy turned all red. "Gahh! I hate it! I can't stand it anymore I just wish I knew!"

In a not-so-subtle manner, she said, "So, how about Nikki?"

"What about him?" she asked, sitting up.

Lucy said, "He'd be a good boyfriend."

Wendy dismissed him in less than two seconds. "He's prettier than I am, and he's too nice." And then she went right back to her considerations about Romeo.

Lucy frowned as she listened, but it was disheartening. She felt like she was personally invested in this non-existing relationship. _Romeo, Romeo, Romeo_ , she thought as she squeezed Plue a little harder than the spirit would have preferred.

Nice and pretty - not exactly the way a guy wants his crush to think of him.

"He won't be pretty forever. You can tell he's going to get big and ugly like Laxus, and if he keeps hanging around with his brother, you can bet he's not going to be very nice," Lucy argued.

But she wasn't hearing it, and the blonde pouted a little as she tried to come to terms with the fact that they simply couldn't force Wendy to change her mind.

Lucy wondered briefly why good girls like jerks rather than nice guys, and then she realized she had stomped on the hearts of nice, amazing guys like Dan Straight and ended up with a bad boy herself. So she couldn't really fault her for that. There was something unsatisfyingly bland about a man who was nice all the time.

So, with her dreams of seeing the little dragons together sufficiently crumbled, Lucy gave up and had a frank conversation with her about Romeo before bed.

XXX

The plan was simple enough. Laxus and Lucy would climb up the mountain and visit the old witch, and Gildarts would babysit. Gildarts was fine with this, as he enjoyed the kids and was not a spectacular mountain climber with only one leg.

Plus, with three kids in tow, it would have been irresponsible to leave them by themselves, not only because they might be in danger, but because they were at an age where they themselves tended to create trouble. It also seemed like six people climbing up a mountain was weird to start with.

Besides, taking Gildarts anywhere was like an open declaration of war. He was like a phantom and other than the guild, he was _never_ seen anywhere unless he was causing trouble Generally speaking, seeing Gildarts outside of Magnolia in the flesh meant things were about to get really serious.

The mountain was steep, but beautiful. Laxus was tempted to use lightning form, but he was wary of using magic and did his best to kind of keep his natural aura under wraps. He could tell there was some kind of weird magic at the top, but as they climbed, it didn't move or change, so he assumed it might be a peaceful meeting, whether or not it was productive.

Well, if it was unproductive, it was going to get unpeaceful, that much was assured.

While they were climbing, Lucy - using Capricorn Star Dress for agility and Scorpio for improved grip on the rocks - looked down at the village. "Alvarez is actually a really beautiful and peaceful country. I don't know what to think of the fact that Zeref is the one who ran it. Like, was he a dark wizard by day and star economist and development visionary by night? He really seemed to do a lot of good for this country."

Laxus looked down as well. "I will never understand enemies that are situationally bad. If I was going to go evil, I would go all the way."

"What's all the way?"

He pulled himself up onto a ledge, and helped her up. "I'd take Crocus hostage using the Thunder Palace, and force the king to let the princess join my harem."

"I will push you off this cliff, Laxus. I bet you'd make nice _splat_ sound."

"And you think you _wouldn't_ scare a normal guy?"

The blonde reached up. "I think it's so weird someone lives on a mountain and there are no roads up. Does this old witch fly up on her broomstick? Maybe we can ask her after you ask if she'll join your harem."

They rested for a minute, and Lucy recounted the high points of her conversation with Wendy to Laxus, and Laxus was annoyed.

"Help me understand this. Wendy complains about Romeo not being nice to her the way she wants, but doesn't want a 'nice guy.'"

His girlfriend shrugged. "You know what they say. Nice guys finish last."

"Does that make me a nice guy?" he asked with an overly dramatic eyebrow wiggle.

"Ugh, shut up. Let's get back to work before I really do push you."

When they made it to the peak, a flat, rocky area on the side of the mountain, they found themselves near the door of an old-looking hut where smoke was billowing from the chimney.

Briefly, she reached out and squeezed his hand.

He squeezed back and said, "You really are going to stick by my side, aren't you?"

She nodded. "Of course."

Laxus knocked on the door and it creeped open seemingly on its own.

"Enter," a voice called.

The house was filled with assorted jars and containers of strange liquid and stranger ingredients.

In one corner, an old woman was mashing herbs with a mortar and pestle. Her hair was silver, thin, and wiry, and her light silver eyes seemed ancient. It was clear she'd long surpassed normal human life expectancy, and a strange magic filled the air. She was wearing a red cloak that extended to the floor but bare feet with long, gnarled looking toes could be seen poking from beneath it.

The first thing that confused Laxus was that he could smell multiple people, but all the scents seemed to be coming from the woman. He'd never encountered anything like that, and he found it rather disturbing.

"Are you Angelora?"

"Yes, yes...I sense your curse. You are a son of Ivan," she said.

Laxus crossed his arms. "I came to ask out about the curse."

Angelora approached him slowly, shuffling her feet across the floor. "What would you like to know?"

"If there's a way to break it. The curse frankly doesn't punish Ivan at all since he doesn't particularly care."

The old woman laughed at him. "Then it sounds like it's working just perfectly."

"What does that mean?"

"Do you know what you're carrying in your blood? It's the ancient Curse of Nyx. It brings madness and despair as it works to break bloodlines, even one as powerful as yours."

Laxus had read about this ancient curse once in a book in the library. According to the book, the previous ruling family of what had been this small northern country had been cursed with this spell and the King lost his mind and all of his children died young. _And the King didn't care_. He became crazy, paranoid, obsessed with settling old scores. Had more kids, they all died young, one of which he even killed himself.

His own people burned him at the stake for being crazy. The nation was absorbed into the empire of Alvarez soonafter, which, of course, meant Zeref. He wondered if the woman standing before him was responsible for that debacle.

All that pretty closely paralleled his experiences with his father, and the idea that Ivan wasn't responsible for his own insanity made his mouth feel a little dry and his stomach a little upset.

It was a big, tough pill to swallow.

Laxus felt reality tug at him when Lucy hooked her arm in his and asked, "We want to break the curse. If Ivan did something wrong, we understand. But we didn't anything wrong. There's no reason to punish us."

The witch met her eyes and said, "My son Horace would have been one of the Great Twelve Spriggan."

"You were an ally of Zeref?!"

"The good Lord...he was put down by dogs. And now the pups have come to my door begging for mercy."

Laxus took another step back, and Lucy felt his apprehension. "My grandfather told me once that my father killed an extremely wizard in the north that was using a _**very taboo**_ magic."

As soon as he said it, the whole atmosphere seemed to change.

Lucy shivered at the strange current of magic in the room. There was such a thing as sensing power, and then then there was the unmistakable presence of evil. Among the enemies she'd ever fought, she'd rarely really met many that carried the hellish sense of dread she felt then. Even in Indus, those wizards were powerful, but the kind of evil they practiced was human. This feeling was otherworldy, inhuman, and wicked. Even Laxus was unnerved by it, and she'd really never seen him flinch like that, although Lucy suspected part of his apprehension was caused by the knowledge of the magic he refused to name.

Angelora took one step closer and Laxus suddenly stepped forward and grabbed her by the bottom half of her face, squeezing until her jaws opened and revealed a mouth full of enormous, razor-sharp teeth. Her face seemed demonic and inhuman.

Suddenly, Lucy's entire body became stiff, like she was frozen in place. She was fully conscious, but she couldn't move, breathe, and she felt like there was some kind of weird ringing sound in her ears that echoed to the very core of her soul. She couldn't even move her eyes, but she was certain the thud she heard was the sound of Laxus landing on the floor.

The old woman held them like that for the better part of two minutes, and Lucy heard noise at her side. There was a low growl that almost shook the little house, and Laxus stood.

"How can you resist a spell that subjugates human flesh?" Angelora asked as the dragon slayer straightened himself up and popped his knuckles as if ready to fight.

Lucy's mind immediately connected his resistance to the fact he was a hybrid between human and dragon. She decided that in Star Dress, she was basically the same way, only the twinning of magics was temporary. Lucy thought hard, and the spell was broken when she adorned Leo Star Dress.

What she did not expect to see was that while Laxus was under the spell and his human side was suppressed, the dragon side started to take over.

The witch released him immediately because something disastrous was clearly about to happen, and Laxus seemed very disoriented as he came back to himself. "The curse can only be broken by spilling the blood of the caster, and son, you don't look ready. Take your friend and go before you make me angry. You step foot on my mountain again and I'll _have you both_. I kill everyone else who touches my rock, but I'd prefer the curse kill you."

Angelora noted that they were powerful wizards, ones that resisted even her powerful magic by their individual means. The woman followed the man's lead, reading his every hint. She decided they were probably lovers, probably disheartened by the grim future the curse promised, and probably there to try and fight for some kind of future.

Lucy was careful because she could tell that for whatever reason, Laxus didn't want to fight. He was normally only apprehensive if there was a situation where he felt like he might not win, so for him to assess this situation and take the calm road meant he estimated the witch was considerably more powerful than they were.

Meanwhile at the cottage, the three teenagers were outside while Gildarts slept when Romeo said, "So, how long are we going to keep this up? We know where the excitement is. I've had enough of this kid's table crap"

"Laxus told us to stay down here," his brother answered.

"Ask me if I care."

Wendy was somewhat annoyed by being segregated with the boys, primarily because she was sure she could hammer both of their faces into the ground, at the same time, blindfolded, and with one arm tied behind her back. Of course, she never would, but she was the strongest but she'd been left behind anyway. "You want to go up, don't you?"

Romeo was truly having a moment where he channeled his idol, Natsu. "We should. What's the worst that could happen?"

"We could die," Nikki answered.

The other boy made his best impression of a chicken. "We do two things really good in our guild: destroy stuff and break rules. Besides, they might need our help. C'mon, or stay home like a big crybaby. Your choice."

Something in Wendy's mind told her it was a terrible idea, but Romeo was going, so she was going. Then Nikki wasn't going to let her run off with him into danger without him. So they collectively made a very unreasonable decision and up the mountain they went.

Laxus and Lucy made it to the bottom and were walking back down the path to the cottage when she asked, "So what kind of magic did she use? What happened to her mouth?"

"It's Solstice magic, one of the most ancient forms of dark magic. It's also one of the most taboo forms of magic. It involves eating human flesh and consuming the soul, which in turn gives the caster a lot of creepy powers over people. The caster basically holds the souls inside of them indefinitely and can summon containers for them," he said.

She stopped walking. "Are you kidding me?"

Laxus shook his head.

"She. Eats. People."

Hey boyfriend nodded. "It's _very_ powerful magic. We need Gildarts, and we need the kids and all the people and the town to get away. We'll put them on a train and send them to the capital. Put Wendy in charge. They'll stay put for a few days. We'll catch up to them anyway."

Lucy picked up her pace to keep up with him. "Laxus, do you think it's true your father is crazy because of a curse and not because he wants to be that way."

"I'm sure of it. As soon as she said it, I knew."

"How?"

He stopped for a second and grabbed her hand. "I lost my mind for a little while too. You saw the Battle of Fairy Tail. Does any of that seem like something I'd do? I got crazy, paranoid, I didn't give a shit about anybody I should have cared about. I hurt people in the guild. I hurt Gramps. That's the crazy state of mind Ivan has been in for as long as I can remember."

"So Ivan ran into a really bad guy, who did really awful stuff and was trying to jockey for a place in the Spriggan 12. Ivan kills him, gets cursed, goes home, loses his mind, and has two sons he's not even able to love. What if he's not really a bad guy?" she asked.

Laxus said, "I can't start thinking about any of that right now. It's a distraction and I need focus right now."

When they got home an hour after sunset, they found the cottage empty, and Laxus noted from the scents that it had been that way for a while.

There was a note on the coffee table and Lucy picked it up. "A note?"

Laxus waited for her, and Lucy swallowed and met his eyes. "The kids ran off and went up the mountain. Gildarts went to get them."

His lip twitched into a snarl that showed he was actually very pissed at the teenagers. "Go down to the town, tell everyone to flee. Meet me up top. Be careful." And then he said something anyone who has been responsible for raising a teenage wizard has said: "I swear to God if they live through this I'll kill them myself."

 _ **Please Review!**_

 _ **Special thanks to yumeyumi1986, Megumiyoung, Flamey Owl, W1n6s-0f-f1r3, Paname, kurahieiritr JIO, DisguisedBeauty, Aoutre, 12Rayne, MWolfe13, boyceashlee, axltz, Silverghostkitsune, and thornado for reviewing!**_


	20. Lucy Ace!

Laxus was _worried_.

This was something he didn't do often, and this worry bordered on fear as he bounced around the mountain in lightning form. He couldn't smell any of the kids, which he soon believed was due to the magic of the witch. He didn't see them anywhere on the outside of the mountain either, which meant there was either some kind of illusory magic in play or the teens had for whatever reason crawled into one of the countless caves.

He was worried both about the safety of the teenagers as well as the high unfavorability of the battle that was almost inevitably about to start at any second. Gildarts was one of the most powerful wizards in the world, but he had some mobility limitations due to missing an arm and a leg. A mountain was the _worst_ place for him to fight.

The first person he found was Gildarts, who carried an unusual concern on his face too as he climbed, gazing upward at the mysterious source of magic above them. They spoke briefly and then separated again as Gildarts continued toward the top.

Inside of the mountain, Wendy and Nikki were following along behind Romeo, whose hand was wrapped in fire. Nikki walked behind the group, arms crossed. He was more than certain that what they were doing was a terrible idea, and he could tell Wendy knew on some level that it was foolish as well, but there was a Fairy Tail attitude to act now, think later.

Finally, he stopped. "That's enough. Let's go back."

"Are you scared? Where's that Dreyar courage?" Romeo asked.

"Courageous and stupid are actually different things."

A shove, and then a fist, and they were at it, this time a little more seriously and a little more violent than one could call a simple guild rivalry. Romeo caught Nikki's shirt on fire, and the Dreyar teen pulled the rest of his shirt off, revealing a body covered in scars and old wounds from his tumultuous childhood in Indus.

Romeo froze for a minute. "What the fuck happened to you?"

Wendy got between them. "That's enough! Nikki's right. We need to go back. We're not supposed to be here. We're not supposed to be acting like this. None of this is right."

"But-!" Romeo started.

The girl said, "I'm the strongest one here by a lot, and I'm not taking no for an answer."

But when she turned, the path out had turned into a solid wall. The only path was forward, and so forward they went.

They came to a slightly cavernous room lit by a trench of fire that encircled the room except for the doorway, and when they stepped in, the circle completed and the path behind sealed, effectively trapping them with no way out or in.

There were human skeletons all over the floor, no exit, and a strange, scary magic seemed to saturate the air.

Wendy tried to clear her mind, but the first thing she thought about was how in Indus, Laxus taught her to always make her enemies fight her on her terms. If they have a position, either ruin it, use it to her own advantage, or cause them to leave it. They were fighting from the position of disadvantage, against an enemy they did not know, in the arena of the enemy's choosing. He never led them into those circumstances, not ever.

The magic in the room grew more intense, and the kids looked at one another.

All at once, the skeletons on the floor pulled together and stood from the floor, their bodies transforming as finger bones elongated into sharp claws and teeth dripped with venom.

Wendy was the strong one, and even though she was almost paralyzed by fear of what kind of magic caused such a thing, she exploded forward and attacked when one rushed at her. "We don't have a choice. Let's fight. Watch their teeth and their hands."

Her powers were not particularly effective in a small, enclosed room.

So they fought - fruitlessly - against the puppets.

They got tired.

They got frustrated.

No matter what they did, their enemies kept getting up indefinitely.

Wendy tripped when a kick failed to connect and she stumbled towards death at the hands of those claws, only to be snatched out of the way at the last second.

She saw felt blood ooze down her cheek, and _flesh_ at her feet.

When she was released, she turned to find Nikki standing next to her with blood pouring down his neck because half of his ear had been cut off. "Oh my God…I'll fix it, I promise!" she cried.

Romeo panted from exhaustion, and continued fighting, but it was obviously a pointless effort.

As the fight went on, Wendy noticed their collective mentality starting to slip. Romeo became considerably more sober and less self-confident. He got slashed and was losing a little too much blood a little bit too fast, so the amount of time he could continue fighting dwindled by the second.

Wendy, almost out of magic power and strength, delivered a kick, but her leg was caught by her opponent. Claws sank into her leg and then venom-drenched teeth sank into the flesh.

Instantly, the poison paralyzed her and she hit the ground.

She'd never felt pain like that ever in her life, and Romeo fought the attacker off of her for a minute before he passed out face-first next to her.

Nikki threw the monster off of them and found himself in a fight alone. Behind him, Wendy was screaming non-stop, her body convulsing uncontrollably around as black poison crawled up her leg, and Romeo was unconscious in a pool of blood.

He hadn't been able to do much with his magic but shock a little when he punched, but the weaker he got, the more he could feel it almost pulling at him. Whatever was going to happen, he had to do it by himself.

They rushed, he took a deep breath, then another, and then he held it for a minute. Desperate and feeling righteous indignation and blistering rage at the same time, he felt his powers burst to life and saturate his lungs.

The lightning breath turned the skeletons to dust and blasted a hole in the roof of the cave, alerting Gildarts and Laxus to exactly where they were, although when the magic dissipated it was the bone-chilling sound of Wendy screaming that brought Gildarts as fast as he came, and when he jumped down to them, he obliterated the last enemies with little trouble and knelt next to Wendy.

The black patch was crawling by the second, now almost up to her knee, rotting flesh as it went along.

Gildarts decided this was pretty much the worst outcome short of one or more of them being dead. The venom was deadly, and she probably had two minutes left. There was no time to find a cure, or a polite way to treat it.

"Wendy? Look at me. This is the only way, okay?"

She didn't answer, and he punched her hard enough she was out cold.

"What are you doing?!" Nikki asked,

Gildarts pulled a knife from his cape. "I'm going to cut it out and you're going to burn the wound shut with lightning."

The knife slid in with a squishing sound, and Gildarts jerked it and pulled it through, cutting a chunk of her calf muscle, some fat, and some skin away. He carved the poisoned flesh out of her, and looked up at him. "Okay. Lightning."

"I can't burn Wendy…"

"She'll either die from blood loss if you don't."

So he did. And then he burned Romeo's bleeding wounds shut at the old man's instruction.

There was a deafening series of thunder bolts outside, which lit up the sky.

Gildarts looked up, then at the other two. "I know you're in bad fucking shape, but I'm going to bet on that Dreyar blood and assume you're gonna be alright. You guys are like cockroaches. Romeo will probably have enough strength to get up in a couple of hours. Wendy's in bad shape. I need you pick her up, take her down the mountain, take her to the next town over, and get her to a doctor. Her life literally depends on you being able to do that. I'm not going to ask you if you can handle that because you don't have a choice."

He blasted a hole through the side and put Wendy on his back. "You gotta stay out of trouble getting off the mountain but after that you should be okay."

Nikki nodded silently.

Gildarts took Romeo up and put him in the safest place he saw before joining Laxus as Lucy also met him at the top. "Found the kids."

"Are they alright?" Lucy asked.

"I don't think any of them are going to die. But we need to keep this bitch real busy for the next few minutes because a couple of them are on their way down."

Laxus took a deep breath. "Okay. Here's the plan. Gildarts, I think Angelora's magic might be able control you and that would be a fucking disaster for us, so don't get close to her. She'll raise up dolls, keep them away from us. Lucy and I are able to resist the magic to an extent - I think Lucy's Regulus powers will probably be the most effective. Light against dark."

Lucy nodded in understanding.

"Where is she?" Lucy asked.

Gildarts looked up. "Right above us."

Lucy looked up, but she didn't see anything until the witch teleported out of seemingly nowhere, sending all three jumping in opposite directions. The old woman moved so fast, dodging an attack from Gildarts, a bolt of lightning, and then turning into smoke and rematerializing two feet from Lucy.

But Lucy in that time had put on her Leo and Capricorn Star Dress and put popped her right in the face with a lightning-fast uppercut.

Once thing she'd learned about fighting up close was that gradually jumping in was ruinous. Winning took enough guts to jump in all at once, head first, with everything one's whole body had to give. Kicking was more powerful, but slower, and this was a speed game. Capricorn Star Dress gave her nearly inhuman speed, and she could use her kinetics magic to kick it up if she needed to. It had literally taken seven months to make that work the way she wanted it to, but it served her well.

Lucy went at her like a freight train. S-Class wizards were devourers - they did not pick at their food.

Three good contacts and the witch turned into smoke and teleported behind the young wizard right into a roundhouse kick charged with light.

The ground shook and Angelora summoned her undead, and as various deplorable-looking monsters in varying states of decay and mutation rose from the dirt, Lucy felt a strange magic current as Angelora forced the souls she consumed into the puppets.

They were everywhere-probably in excess of two hundred that covered the top and sides of the mountain. Some looked easy to defeat; some were clearly very dangerous.

Lucy felt the static from a lightning attack that threw some aside, and crash magic cut a path before her, but when Lucy charged, the witch turned to smoke and reappeared farther in another direction.

The uneven terrain, combined with the monsters, made it impossible to get a hit in.

Laxus tried attacking, but Angelora seemed strangely unbothered by the magic both Gildarts and Laxus used.

Gildarts fought his way to her. "You ready to level the playing field?"

Lucy switched to Sagittarius and Leo Star Dress, charging an arrow with blindingly bright light. "Ready."

Gildarts used crash magic on the ground, then on the top of the mountain, which threw everyone and everybody high into the air, along with giant giant pieces of rock and so much dust Lucy could barely see.

With a clear plane even while everything was in the air, Laxus blasted everything and everybody that wasn't Lucy or Gildarts. Lightning buzzed around her as she went feet-first into a boulder and kicked off, aiming her arrow directly below as she felt like the enemy would probably appear above her. Sure enough, she heard the _pop_ and the smelled sulfur. She twisted and shot the witch with an arrow.

Gildarts and Laxus fought the monsters, so Lucy didn't allow herself to be distracted, not even by the ones that were directly near her. She had to trust that they were going to keep her safe and cover her.

Everything crashed to the ground, and Lucy ran forward, shoving monsters aside in her singular pursuit of Angelora. As Laxus told her long before, the weakness of the caster is always their body, and so that's where she aimed.

The monsters seemed to reassemble themselves not entirely unlike Bixlow could just put his souls in different dolls, she realized, so fighting them, while necessary, was somewhat pointless. Their only purpose was to provide offense and defense for Angelora, and Lucy's duty was to be the offense while her teammates defended her.

Most of the top of the mountain fell in boulders on the now-empty village, crushing the pristine buildings.

The fight required an enormous amount of big magic to perpetuate, and Lucy started to understand why Laxus had been so hesitant to start this fight to begin with. An hour in, the top third of the mountain was gone from extreme lightning blasts and crash magic and they were roughly around where they started. Lucy assumed she'd probably hit the witch at least thirty times with substantial magic. She'd also been hit as many times, and the dark magic left her limbs feeling a little numb and heavy.

Laxus met her eyes, blasted a path through to her, and met her back-to-back.

Gildarts joined their mid-horde meeting, sweeping enemies away with a stroke of his hand. "So this ain't going nowhere. My magic and Laxus' magic doesn't work on her. Yours seems to, but she's taken fuck all from you and she hasn't even flinched."

Lucy asked, " _Why_ does only my magic work on her? I feel like we're missing very material and important, and if we can figure out what it is, we can win."

The riddle was - what was different from Lucy's magic than the crushingly more powerful magic used by Gildarts and Laxus. Or, what did their magic have in common that her magic did not? Gildarts used two major forms of magic, neither of which were elemental and neither of which dealt with energy. Laxus' magic was singular in variety and was completely energy based.

Crash magic involved manipulating matter and blasting apart molecules of potential energy.

Lightning dragon slayer magic involved passing energy through an enemy.

Gildarts said, "Our magic is terrestrial. Hers is celestial. She's attacking us from some other space, and only Lucy's magic can penetrate it. We'll never win. We either need to find a way to land a fucking hit or we need to find a way to _politely_ disengage."

Lucy felt Laxus bristle at the suggestion. "I'm not letting this one go. This is one battle I refuse to lose."

The old man smirked as he blasted their enemies back. "The defiance of youth...I don't miss it at all."

The blonde's mind ran a thousand miles an hour as she tried to find another way. And then, she said, "I know what to do. I'm going to give you guys a window of opportunity, but you have to take it. I can open gates to other places with my magic, but once, I destroyed a gate too."

Lucy was referring, of course, to when she broke her Aquarius key during the battle with Tartaros.

She was not on the level of her teammates, but to even be there among them, as one of them spoke volumes. Laxus and Gildarts fighting together was a sight to behold, and by that time, the 'mountain' was piles of uneven rubble.

But Lucy knew she wasn't a rookie anymore, and her power was nothing to sneeze at. Compared to other celestial spirit wizards, Lucy couldn't find a record of one besides Anna Heartfilia who could use Star Dress. She knew in her bones there were heights in celestial spirit magic that were high above where she was, but she felt confident she could pull off the task at hand.

Maybe she was the only one in the whole world who could.

After all, who else had shattered a gate to another world?

"Cover me!"

Lucy took cover behind a rock and tried to remember everything that she could about the fight where she and Aquarius had been parted. She took the stump of the key in hand and closed her fist around it. There was still magic in it, but it was essentially a gate to nowhere.

Now that Gildarts pointed it out, she knew he was right. Angelora was phasing in and out of some second space, although Lucy wasn't sure what kind of space it was. She had wondered in the past if there were other worlds like the celestial realm, but if their enemy was coming to and from a place, it certainly wasn't celestial.

She aimed a single arrow, and closed her eyes briefly. As a celestial spirit wizard, she knew she must have known on some level where their world ended and another began, and she tried to quiet her other senses. And she decided at that moment, that maybe she should have asked these questions all along. Dragon slayers had all kinds of senses concerning the terrestrial world, but she only made herself aware of the extra-terrestrial when confronted directly with it.

The magic came from her, not a spirit; she was the one who made and broke the gateway between the two worlds. Which made her, in effect, far more powerful than all of her spirits together. The arrow had a white, iridescent, blindingly bright glow.

Her aim was careful, and not directly at Angelora but at the black smoke that billowed out of wherever she came from, because that was the location of the link.

Her arrow sailed through the air, hit it's mark, and exploded spectacularly as Angelora was-for the first time in this fight-actually there with them completely.

Lucy crumbled to her knees in exhaustion, but she was okay with that.

Laxus lunged at Angelora and went at her with every ounce of his body. He didn't know what role the cursed had truly played in his life, but as he landed blow after blow, he flashed back to being a sick child, to the acrimony in his family, to the day when he was seven and he overheard someone say he'd never live to be an adult...he'd had to fight for everything in his life. Health, sanity, family, love, power, happiness, and every other thing most people took for granted were the things he had to fight the most for.

Gildarts noticed that Laxus was at his absolute prime in this fight. He knew the elder of the Dreyar brothers was notoriously complacent in battles until he realized he had to be serious, but this one he gave the might of every cell in his body. Deprived of her otherworldly protection, Angelora found the tide had turned violently and completely in favor of the Fairy Tail wizards.

When Laxus started to make progress, the souls trapped bound to her started to de-couple, a horrifying and disgusting process that caused her monsters to start drop and turn to dust when Gildarts hit them.

And when he scored that last blow, he instantly lost consciousness.

On a country road, Nikki hit the ground unconscious as well.

And elsewhere, Ivan hit the ground in his home, unconscious.

XXX

Three days later, a small-town doctor was making the rounds with his patients. The only physician in Astara was surprised when the sky lit up a few nights before and there were clear signs of extreme violence at the top of Mount Tara.

Everyone knew an evil witch lived up there, and that the legends of people going missing when they strayed too close to the mountain were true. This 'population shrinkage' was long considered a penalty for living in the fertile, lush valley.

They all watched the destruction of the mountain as the battle went on, hoping the attackers would be successful. A bloody kid stumbled up on his doorstep with another kid, and later the rest joined them. There was six wizards in total, three adults, three kids. They were all beaten to hell, all of them needed stitches, some had internal injuries, and the girl's leg had been grievously cut up.

Two were brothers, and they inexplicably laid in a nearly comatose state for two days before awakening at the same time.

It was Gildarts that confronted the kids first that day, making his way into the room where Wendy was having a heated argument with the doctor.

Nikki and Romeo were sitting in chairs next to the bed, and Wendy was listening to bad news from the doctor. Between Gildarts and the doctor cutting the rotten flesh away, most of her calf muscle was gone along with tendons necessary for walking properly. Best case scenario, her she might manage to barely walk on it, but it was going to be weak. Healing a wounded limb was easy, but replacing a part of the body that had been lost was more or less impossible.

Wendy would have a bad leg and Nikki would go through the rest of his life missing half an ear.

Romeo would make a full recovery, and yet he was most distraught.

When the doctor left, Romeo quietly said, "I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm so sorry, Wendy."

Gildarts sat on the edge of the bed and looked from one to another. "Experience is a hard teacher," he said in a voice gentler than they expected. "But it's better for you to learn and live than to be ignorant and die later on. So make sure you learn something, because this isn't a mistake you can repeat more than once."

Romeo bowed his head. "Forgive us! It was my fault!"

"Don't be ridiculous. Each and every one of you made your own decision. Part of being an adult requires a person to learn first that you have to live with every decision that you make and second, that when you choose a path, what you don't get to chose is the consequence that follows," he said.

He sat there for a long time and talked with them, gently, and as an older, wiser person. He knew Laxus would probably have some rougher dialogue and possibly further violence, but in Gildarts' mind it hadn't been that long that Laxus was young, defiant, and stupid too.

What they had done seemed to defy even what he knew about them, so he finally asked, "So, Romeo, why did you want to do it?"

The boy soberly answered, "I just wanted to prove I was stronger than...I just wanna be somebody, is that so wrong?"

Gildarts eyes moved to Wendy. "You?"

Wendy, who had paid the highest price of all, cried, "I just wanted Romeo to like me, that's all."

Gildarts finally looked at Nikki. "And you?"

"I thought it was a terrible idea, but I didn't want anybody to die, so I went," he answered, his voice steady and nearly unrepentant.

The old wizard sized them up carefully and found that even though they all had great magic powers and abilities, they were still just kids. An insecure kid trying to prove himself, a girl chasing after the object of her affections, a poor lovesick puppy trying to protect a girl that had no intention of giving him the time of day...just kids.

They had, however, established a pecking order, and Nikki sat at the top of it. Gildarts could tell just from their body language that in being right about the danger, being the last man standing, and saving Wendy, he had established himself as the alpha of the group. Yet that's not what he wanted and he didn't care at all about it. He just wanted Wendy's affections. Romeo, likewise, had her affections but would have traded it to be in the position of dominance.

Gildarts smirked. "You guys are an interesting bunch. Life gives you what you need instead of what you want. Whatever you have, be okay with it. And don't take it too personally when Laxus gets his hands on you, because you guys scared him half to death."

A couple of rooms over, Laxus was leaning over the sink trying to brush his teeth, and he made a face at the blood in the sink. He'd been hit in the mouth so many times he felt like his mouth didn't know how to stop bleeding yet. His eye twitched furiously at the scent of the teens, and he told himself that he felt well enough today to discuss his feelings.

He would do this with his fists.

He'd wanted to do it when he woke up, but the breaking curse left him feeling groggy and disoriented, although his brother was evidently fine after just a few hours. Laxus tried to think this one out, but he decided he didn't care. He could feel that it was gone, like something he'd never been aware of had been cut away and he could feel its absence.

The fight had showed him Gildarts was still miles and miles above him, and that Lucy was indeed the Ace of Spades. They made a positively nasty team and they had good chemistry.

He tossed some mouthwash around in his mouth as his mind briefly crossed the subject of his father, and he elected not to make any considerations.

Lucy had spent her days curled up in the small hospital bed with him, and he was worried, because the witch's magic had a somewhat extended effect on her body. She still seemed drained, so he left her alone as he finally left the room an hour or so later after showering and dressing.

He ran into his brother first and picked him up by the shirt, holding him up to examine him. Busted lip, black eye, and half an ear, the boy seemed unbothered by Laxus' stare. Finally Laxus said, "You look like a junkyard dog."

His brother shrugged, and Laxus dragged him by the collar to Wendy's room. "Since you all made this shit-for-brains decision together, I'm going to crush you together. You're about the have the most important learning experience of your life."

When he opened the door, the two brothers stumbled upon Romeo bent over the bed, kissing Wendy. One of her hands was reaching up to cup his face, and Laxus shut the door quickly.

"Well, shit."

Nikki shrugged. "I don't care anymore."

It was a terrible bluff, but Laxus didn't call him on it.

They sat together in silence for a long time in the waiting room. Laxus contemplated telling his brother about the Lucy and Bacchus kiss, but he really didn't want his brother to fight Romeo over Wendy. There had honestly been enough drama and they were content to sit in comfortable silence.

An hour later, Lucy awoke when the doctor came in to check on her. She sat up in the bed and slowly blinked.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

Lucy shrugged. "The same. It seems to come and go."

The doctor gave her a quick exam, although he had no experience with wizards. It was a little unnerving to have six of them more or less invade his clinic.

The physical signs of the side effects were gone from Lucy's body, so he didn't know if there were perhaps effects he simply couldn't see. The bodies of wizards were mysterious, powerful, and endured strange and intense punishment at times. He'd been doing tests to learn a little more about what they encountered on the mountain, although he hadn't learned much.

The doctor sat back in the chair and clicked his pen. "I was considering several treatment options, based on the source of your illness. I ran some tests to pinpoint what is causing your symptoms."

"Did you find anything?" she asked.

The old man nodded and smiled a little.

"You're pregnant."

 _ **Please review!**_

 _ **Special thanks to kurahieiritr JIO, yumeyumi1986, adabs18, w1n6s-0f-f1r3, silverghostkitsune, boyceashlee, axltz, 12rayne, guest, katiekat2001, flamey owl, darkfae7, katelyn, Megumiyoung, and thornado for reviewing!**_


	21. Lucy Expecting!

How do you tell a man he's going to be a father?

Lucy really didn't know. He wasn't suspicious of her throwing up or her sleeping in, thinking they were after-effects of the witch's magic, although he did pester her to go see Porlyusica. She refused, and he assumed she was only stubborn.

She hadn't been part of his plan for life, but she changed his life and therefore his plans.

Laxus wanted to have a good life with the blonde, and for her to always be happy with him. They were happy together, and he loved her more than he thought he could love anyone. With the curse on him, he hadn't felt safe to consider the future because of the disappointment it might bring, but he was free now.

For this reason, he was walking around with a three carat heart-shaped diamond ring. It was a gorgeous stone, flanked by other diamonds with intricate goldwork. It paid to be s-class, after all.

He didn't know how to ask her to marry him, and he'd tried to ask her to be his wife as many times as she'd tried to tell him she was going to have his baby.

There were internal doubts, where some small still voice asked if he was ready to give up life as a batchelor, and some other voice that mockingly reminded him he already had and currently lived happily in a house with his girlfriend and his little brother. With or without Lucy, the drunken sex nights were long over for him.

He wondered if she was ready to really commit to him, since she was younger and she didn't even know what it was like to be with someone else. Personally, he'd always found it kind of sad when a girl married too early, especially to someone who was older. That was why, even if they did marry when she was younger, he wanted to wait a while to have kids, and he'd expressed that to her repeatedly since they got home and started talking about the future like it was real.

Unaware that this came from his concern for her, Lucy heard him say he wanted to wait to have a kid for years several times and she found herself awkwardly trying to agree knowing he was going to be a father in less than a year.

Lucy really didn't understand life at all; when they were careless, nothing happened. When they were careful, suddenly, there was a baby they weren't ready for.

By the time they'd been home for a month, neither of them had shared their secret.

But Lucy was still sick, and when he decided it had gone on long enough, he went to his grandfather to find out why the black magic would have a prolonged effect on her.

Laxus went to the guild on a crisp fall morning and after asking his grandfather for some privacy, followed the family patron to his office.

Makarov sat down at his desk, and Laxus sat down in one of the chairs across from him. Normally, when they ended up in this room, it was because Laxus had been misbehaving in some way or another, so his soul recoiled a little until he remembered he'd asked to be there.

"Well, what is it, boy?"

Laxus had already told Makarov about everything that happened with the curse when they first got back, so he said, "Lucy is still sick from coming into contact with that witch's magic. I don't sense it on her, but she's still sick. She won't go see Porlyusica about it, and I'm starting to get a little nervous. It must be something serious if it's staying in her body."

Makarov was puzzled by this as well. "Regardless of what kind of magic it was, it should have passed through a long time ago. What kind of illness is she suffering from?"

"She's been throwing up a lot. Certain smells make her sick. Dizzy. Sleepy. Her breasts are sore. I'm starting to be concerned maybe the witch put a curse on her. There's definitely something weird happening in her body," he explained.

Grandfather looked at grandson as one of his eyebrows rose slowly. "Laxus."

"Hm."

Makarov thought about just telling him, because it was painfully obvious. He never imagined his grandson might be so dense, but he clearly was. Most men are naturally suspicious of women that start throwing up and suspect pregnancy, but Laxus was a far more complicated and dense than most men were in some cases.

Instead, he wanted to leave him to Lucy, so he could have that moment of wonder where she looked into his eyes and said the magic words that would change life forever.

"Go home. She'll be fine. Trust me."

"But…"

Laxus was confused, but when Makarov didn't give him any information, he decided to go home anyway.

It was his brother's fourteenth birthday, so he wanted to make sure he was around.

Romeo and Wendy were there in the house, and there was a strange peace among the teens. Laxus felt like his brother was actually kind of ballsy for having the nerve to stay friends with Romeo, who was on a path Laxus himself had walked, and Wendy, who rejected him after he lost half his ear over her.

Romeo was buried under a mountain of sobering guilt as he watched Wendy struggle like hell with her injury, and Wendy was going through a lot worse. She kept the injury hidden, and could barely hop around on her leg, even with crutches.

They seemed to be as okay as they could be, all things considered.

The doorbell rang, and Laxus answered it and found himself staring at a stranger that seemed vaguely familiar for some reason although he was sure he'd never met her in his life. When she entered the house with a cake box and a wrapped gift on top, he placed her as the blonde from some popular advertisements.

Emily Faure was a doll-faced fourteen-year-old girl who was known to all teenagers as the face of Glossy Locks hair company. She had big, loose blonde curls that were ridiculously shiny and stretched down to her waist and the biggest, greenest eyes. She was standing there in a strappy, ruffled dress and little high heels. She had a perfect smile, perfectly manicured nails, and little curves.

Laxus' eyebrows rose as he looked at his brother in question.

Emily practically squealed Nikki's name and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Happy birthday! I baked you a cake!"

Once introductions were made, Laxus found himself quite confused. During his subsequent interrogation, he found out they met at church, and she was kind of over the moon for his white knight personality. She was never more than about ten inches from the younger Dreyar. She fawned over his little muscles, over his big blue eyes, over how he was a good little church boy.

Laxus watched this development with interest, suddenly engaged fully by the teenagers' drama again. He'd felt bad for Nikki since that night, since he lost half his ear and his hope of making Wendy his girlfriend.

Romeo and Wendy were still caught in the consequences of that night as Wendy tried to find a way to contend with her injury and he struggled with guilt about it. They were a pretty hapless and serious couple because of the disaster that had struck them.

Nikki was meanwhile evidently being spoiled half to death by the sweet affections of a gorgeous nice girl who adored him. They were just two good kids dating for the first time and evidently enjoying it. It was fun and light and sweet and they smiled at each other all the time.

After all the kids went home, Laxus shut the door and looked at his brother for a long while. Finally, he said, "Honestly, I don't think there's a louder or more obnoxious way to say 'fuck you, too' to the girl who rejected you and her boyfriend than that. That takes the cake...you know, the amazing chocolate cake your gorgeous new model girlfriend baked for you."

"I'm kind of over that. That's kind of why we've been getting along. I like Emily a lot."

"She seems like a good girl. Stupidly gorgeous too."

Nikki asked, "Where's Lucy?"

"She said Levy wanted her to help her with something, I'm sure she'll eat some of your Girlfriend Cake with you when she gets back," he said.

Lucy came in right as they were talking, slammed the door behind her, and ran straight upstairs without saying a word. Laxus went upstairs after her and found she was locked in the bathroom.

"Lucy? What's the matter?"

He could hear her crying behind her hands on the other side of the door, but she didn't answer.

Laxus giggled the door knob. "Lucy, what in the hell is wrong?"

"Go away," she cried.

His patience with her mysterious illness had somewhat run out and he suspected at times the reason she wasn't going to doctors was because she had some kind of understand that he did not. With a heavy heart, he went to her room and sat on the bed.

When she finally came out of the bathroom and entered her bedroom, she shook her head once. "Laxus...I…" she started to just blurt it out, but then caught herself, "...nevermind."

Laxus sighed and asked, "Did I do something to make you feel like you need to keep secrets from me?"

"No, of course not. You've always been really good to me."

"So what are you hiding from me? Are you not happy? Did you get tired of me? Is there someone else? I'm a man, and I can take whatever it is. I'm worried," he said.

Lucy approached him slowly as he sat there on the edge of the bed and cupped his face. She was scared, but she wasn't going to get less pregnant and keeping it a secret was wearing on them both. "I've been afraid of how you're you're going to feel when I tell you about the baby."

"What baby?" he blankly asked.

She said it so impossibly quiet he could barely hear her even with his dragon hearing. "I'm pregnant."

Yet despite how softly she said those words, they were impossibly loud to him as they echoed in his mind over and over again. He didn't know what to think or feel, but she looked scared, and he couldn't leave her hanging in that moment in fear. In an instant, he was on his feet, and he wrapped his big arms around his little woman and embraced her tightly.

"It's alright, Babe."

She looked up at him. "Are you sure?"

He nodded. "You're _pregnant_."

In the back of his mind, the timing was probably not ideal and definitely not convenient, and he'd had other plans. Having a baby was part of his five-year plan, but he'd started wanting to have a baby when they were in Indus and if it happened earlier, that was okay. Lucy didn't need him to express any afterthought.

She was a strong enough woman that she didn't always need him to be strong for her, but right now she was in a very vulnerable moment in her life, and he knew he wasn't worthy to call her his if he couldn't look after her.

He was going to be a father, and that concept was a lot bigger than any of his concerns. His first duty as a father-to-be was to comfort the mother, who was still shaken.

Laxus kissed her. "Lucy, I love you. We're going to have a kid. That's...shit, that's the most amazing thing ever. You're going to be a mother."

The blonde was half-crying, half happy as they hugged it out and she felt the anxiety start to fall from her. "I've been trying to find a way to ask you if you're okay with it."

"I'm happy. We'll make some new plans. I've had something to ask you too, but I didn't know how you'd respond."

Lucy squeezed him. "Don't be. Whatever it is, we'll be okay, right?"

"You're already the mother of my unborn child, so…" While she wiped her eyes, he slid down to one knee and pulled a little black box from his pocket. "Will you be my wife too?"

She continued crying, but nodded. Laxus kissed the top of her hand as he took it, and slid that big rock on her finger.

Life was happening in fast motion, and for once, it wasn't because something terrible happened. Normally, good changes took time, but tragedy could shake the world up in a second. In this case, it felt like the opposite.

Lucy felt so relieved, so happy, so exhilarated, and she knew she was such a mess. She felt his hands on her hips as he leaned forward and kissed just below her belly button.

When he stood again, he held her tight for a long time, until her whole body and soul relaxed.

Unplanned pregnancy was a strange thing, and Lucy found he actually took it quite a lot better than she did. Then again, Laxus was a good man, and she knew he loved her more than he ever intended to. Since they'd gotten together, he'd constantly wanted her with him all the time.

They kissed and he grinned.

Lucy put her hand on one of his cheeks. "I love you so much."

"I love you too. We're going to have a kid. You and me."

She nodded.

Laxus pulled her back close and whispered in her ear. "Hey, let's elope."

She looked up at him. "...like, now?"

"If we hurry, we can catch the midnight train south. We'll get married, hide in a hotel room on the beach. Come back next week, and you can move into my room and we'll start turning this room into a nursery for the baby," he said.

Always a tactician, he sprung back from the news of the pregnancy with a plan.

Lucy thought about telling him no, telling him she expected a real wedding with this and that, but the truth was that she didn't. Every step she'd taken since she ran away from home had been a little wild, and when she thought about it, she really didn't want to deal with all that to start with.

She nodded. "Okay."

They kissed again and she threw things into her bag haphazardly as he done the same.

Then she remembered the grieving puppy living in their house and went to his room. "Is Nikki going to be okay? I assume he's probably going through a lot."

Laxus looked up and said, "Oh, I forgot to tell you. We can stop feeling sorry for him. He has a new girl."

"Who?"

"Emily Faure, that girl from the hair ads."

Lucy said, "The Glossy Locks model? You're kidding me."

Laxus nodded. "I shit you not, she was in our house earlier being sweet on him. She baked him a birthday cake. I'll tell you everything on the way down to Hargeon."

"Wow, you Dreyar boys are really quite something," she answered.

When they finished packing, they decided to leave a note for Nikki, and so Laxus scribbled on their grocery list.

 _Nikki,_

 _Ran off to elope._

 _Having a kid._

 _Took your cake._

 _Tell no one._

 _Especially not Gramps._

 _Laxus_

They got on the midnight train to Hargeon, and Laxus watched his pregnant wife-to-be eat cake while he tried not to throw up and they made some plans. They got a hotel room, and rested in the bed while they waited for the courthouse to open at ten in the morning.

Laxus was far too wired to nap, but Lucy was tired, so he watched her nod off while he finished off the cake.

He was really glad she was able to make s-class before she got pregnant, because he knew having a baby was a monkey wrench in the career of a female wizard. He promised himself he would do his best to make sure she was able to keep growing and advancing, because she'd worked so hard. She was somebody in the magic world, and it would be a disservice to let her just fall back on motherhood alone. He was certain she could handle both.

At ten in the morning, he kissed her awake.

They showered together, got dressed, and headed to the courthouse, only stopping to buy a couple of gold bands.

They filled out a form together, provided identification, and waited impatiently until their names were called. They held hands; every few minutes he whispered in her ear, and she giggled. The employees at the courthouse rolled their eyes at them, and one of them tipped the local newspaper off.

XXX

Makarov stared across the desk in his office at Wendy.

Of all the kids he'd raised, he hadn't had many that that were seriously injured. It had hurt his heart when he found out what had happened in the north, but he'd known something bad would eventually happen. Some situations demand harsh lessons, and life never failed to provide one.

Wendy thought often of the conversation Laxus had with her on the way to Indus. He told her that it was harder for women to make it to the top, and advised her strongly against getting involved with Romeo.

Her mind and her body had been completely swept up in this mess, and she felt like her life was in a tailspin and she didn't want any guy to be at the center of it. She didn't even know how to get her life back on track at that point.

Well, she did.

Wendy knew she was at a crossroads, and she had to make important choices.

"I made a mistake, Master."

Makarov nodded. "Every person makes two or three bad decisions that dramatically change their lives forever. What matters now is how you move on."

Wendy said, "Porlyusica said my leg isn't ever going to be able to hold my weight. Gildarts had to cut the muscle and the tissue away to save my life. I'll have to use crutches for the rest of my life."

Makarov had already been told this, and this conversation had been coming. One bad decision and Wendy went from being one of the future of the guild to not having much of a future in the guild. He'd tried to talk his way around it, researching healing magics and therapy, but there was no real hope.

"You're young, so you can retire and still have a different life. Learn to do something, maybe go to school. Grow up, get married. Maybe become Mrs. Conbolt someday," the old man gently said, trying to offer a glimmer of hope.

She answered, "I have a different plan."

"Oh?"

"I'd be able to walk on a prosthesis."

Makarov's eyes widened a little at her unflinching determination. "You'd give up what's left of your leg?"

Wendy nodded. "It can be cut right under the knee. I'll get a metal prosthesis, and it wouldn't be bad. I could still fight."

He didn't argue with her because in the end, they all had to make their own decisions and Wendy was ready to fight to set her life back in order. Without it, she had no future in magic.

"You're sure?"

Wendy nodded.

She went from the guild to the Conbolt house and knocked.

Romeo answered the door and let her in. "What's wrong? You look upset."

"I just came to say goodbye for a while. I'm going to see a surgeon in Crocus to have my leg amputated, and then get a prosthesis. And then also...I need to be my own friend right now. I don't need a boyfriend."

Wendy kissed him on the cheek. "Romeo, I think you're a really special guy and I hope you're able to be okay with everything and not be so reckless. I'll see you around, okay?"

 _ **Please Review!**_

Special thanks to ilarual, w1n6s-0f-f1r3, darkfae7, tiernank, yumeyumi1986, guest, Dragon lord draco, rere97maui, sarasugarbug17, katiekat2001, adabs18, silverghostkitsune, thornado, lunastarlady, miss dany, megumiyoung, illustre, axltz, H.M. Akhlys, CosmoO33, 12rayne, xxpumbaxx, paname, and westerngoddess for reviewing!


	22. Lucy Bride!

Makarov had really had enough with both of his grandsons.

Laxus never told him anything, and when he opened up a recent issue of Sorcerer Weekly, he knew that he'd taught his brother in his wicked ways. There was a photograph on page seven of his supposedly-heartbroken grandson holding hands with a girl who was in a full-page advertisement on page nine.

Beneath it, the caption read:

 _Fairy Prince: Nikki Dreyar - younger brother of saint wizard Laxus and grandson of saint and Fairy Tail guild master Makarov - takes a moment to enjoy life as a prince of the magic world with young model Emily Faure. Like his brother, he can't stay away from a cute blonde._

Makarov stomped down the street in such annoyance that he didn't see there was a new issue out, and Laxus and Lucy covered it. The photograph snapped of them eloping was snatched up by the infamous wizarding magazine for an outrageous amount of money and this had managed to keep their secret from getting out for almost a week.

He banged on the door, and Nikki opened it and politely greeted his grandfather.

"Do you have a girlfriend I don't know about?" he asked, sparring all niceties.

It was important to note that Laxus kept Makarov out of his business because Makarov was a meddler and Laxus had a poor personality. Nikki kept Makarov out of his business because Laxus was a meddling in his life with his bad personality and he couldn't handle two. He didn't want both of them in his business.

"Of course not," he innocently answered.

Makarov, in turn, used magic to match and then overcome his growing grandson's height and smacked him upside the head with the magazine. "You ungrateful grandson! You could tell me you have a girlfriend! Instead I have to find out about you from a magazine."

He grimaced. "You're just like Laxus said."

"Laxus is full of crap, and it looks like you are too."

Nikki sat on the couch and crossed his arms. "Well, we're brothers. What do you expect?"

There was a plate of heart-shaped chocolate-chip cookies on the coffee table, and Makarov took one and bit it. "And where did these come from?"

"I don't know. Maybe the store?"

The only person who had the balls to act like this was, of course, Laxus.

Lucy told Makarov not long before that the two brothers were thicker than thieves despite having not been together very long, and Makarov could see very clearly the unflinching loyalty. If Laxus told Nikki not to talk to Makarov about girls, he wasn't going to do it.

Makarov stared him down for an eternity, and found his grandson - even if he had a pleasant disposition - was still a Dreyar. He was unyielding, unrepentant, and stubborn as hell; he was only more polite about it.

"You and Laxus think you can hide from me. You can't hide shit in a snowstorm from me."

And then, he asked, "Where is Laxus?"

"I really like her."

"Changing the subject because you're not going to rat out your brother? What's he doing? Now that I think of it, I haven't seen him in days. Him or Lucy. I know they're not on a job," the old man pointedly asked.

Nikki fidgeted.

"What are they doing?"

"I don't know."

"So they just left you alone, by yourself, for days, and didn't explain where they went and you haven't been worried enough to say something?" his grandfather pressed.

Nikki didn't have a lifetime of holding up under the intimidating stare of the old man, and just when he felt like he might cave in, the front door swung open and Laxus and Lucy came in grinning and froze at the sight of him.

Makarov glared, "And just where have _you_ been? Your brother has been out sneaking around with a girl. He thinks he can keep secrets from me."

Laxus and Lucy exchanged a glance.

The issue of Sorcerer Weekly had hit the stands that morning, and the newly married couple had seen them on the way home. It was obvious that Makarov hadn't seen yet, and Laxus smirked a bit behind his back while Makarov ranted about Nikki having the nerve not to keep him up to date.

Laxus led Lucy by the hand and they sat down on the couch, at which point, Nikki escaped, grumbling some excuse as he fled from the house. Makarov turned his attention to the newly married Dreyars, still unaware that the two had eloped.

Finally, Laxus said, "Gramps, you're pissing me off. Stop yelling in front of my wife already."

"I'll yell at whoever I waaaaaaa…" It was like the word on the tip of Makarov's tongue when it melted, his mouth gaping open slowly with effort. "...what...you...stop fucking with me, Laxus! You know I have a heart condition! Are you trying to kill me so you can be guild master?"

Laxus grinned like a madman and held up his hand, flashing the gold wedding band at him.

It was the smile - not the ring - that proved to Makarov that his oldest grandson wasn't just making a career move. Lucy was smiling too as they sat there like a couple of obnoxiously in love kids, and Makarov became motionless for a minute.

Makarov sat down on the coffee table directly across from them and stared intently.

Laxus let him have a minute and then sat back. "You're being creepy, Gramps."

"So, help me understand, Laxus. I take you in as a sick, cranky infant, listen to you scream, change your diapers, deal with your health problems, teach you how to walk and talk, clean up your puke, teach you how to crap on a toilet, pay for all those toys you couldn't play with because your schedule was full of temper tantrums, make sure you go to school, drag you everywhere with me, and then, you grow up a little, become an _insufferable shit_. I deal with that. You try to blow up the city and I still put up with you. Finally, after many years of giving me all this trouble, you didn't even have the decency to invite me to your wedding," he said.

Laxus wanted to argue, but he decided it was fruitless.

Besides, he was holding a trump card.

Makarov leaned forward and asked, "Well, boy? What do you have to say?"

Laxus blushed a little. "Gramps, we uhhh…"

"We what? Are ungrateful? Are indifferent to feelings of a loving old man?"

"There's going to be a kid," Laxus finally mumbled.

Of course, Makarov had strong suspicions since his grandson came to his office and said Lucy had morning sickness symptoms, but there was nothing like hearing it from the horse's mouth. Laxus seemed a little nervous and shy about it, which was - at least to Lucy - cute.

Makarov forgot he was angry and grinned. "Laxus, you made a baby?"

It was weirdly embarrassing for Laxus to have to admit to his grandfather that he'd gotten Lucy pregnant, and he sat there nervous and blushing. She did the same thing, fidgeting at his side as he stared at the wall. "Yeah, I guess."

His eyes moved to Lucy, and then he hopped on the sofa next to her and put his palm on her belly. "How far along are you?"

"Three months, Master."

Makarov flinched, "You've been pregnant since before the S-Class trials. Pregnant and fighting monsters...S-Class indeed. Sheesh, what a woman."

Laxus asked, "So Lucy fought in the trials and against the witch. Do you think-"

"The baby is in the womb of the mother, the safest place of all. Lucy's body has been protecting the baby all along. The baby will be fine," the old man quickly explained, sensing Laxus' worry.

The word 'baby' made the hearts of the newlyweds beat a little faster.

Laxus turned to Lucy. "Are you tired? You should go upstairs and rest for a bit."

Makarov nodded. "Lucy, you're carrying my great grandbaby. Make sure you take good care of yourself."

Lucy nodded and went upstairs, leaving the men in the living room.

Laxus served himself and his grandfather some whiskey and sat down to complete his interrogation. "Gramps, are you really pissed we ran off?"

His grandfather shook his head once. "I would have liked to see you get married, but you've always been like this. I'm very proud of you. Somehow or another, you're shaping up to be a good man. It's quite surprising."

"Fuck off already, I know I'm great."

Makarov sipped his whiskey. "This is an unplanned pregnancy?"

"Something like that. But what am I going to do? The kid's going to come either way. It's really kind of amazing. I'm not that bothered with the timing now that I've had time to think about it," Laxus answered.

"You want a boy or a girl?"

Laxus shrugged. "I don't know.

They spent quite a while together, drinking and talking about the kinds of things Laxus never would have been interested in hearing before.

Before Makarov left that night, he looked over his shoulder. "You remember a year and a half ago when you were complaining about being restless and bored and I told you it was time for to get married and have kids? You took Lucy as a student to be rebellious to the idea of having a wife and a kid, and look, she is your wife and she's going to have your kid."

Laxus' eyebrow started twitching a sad dance as he remembered this conversation. "You're bringing that up for what reason?"

"Just wanted to point out I was right and you were wrong, as usual."

"Go home already."

Makarov turned and asked, "Natsu went on a job by himself. I think he should have been back by now. Usually I'd leave him to himself, but I heard a rumor. Can you discreetly check in on his job as a favor to your grandfather?"

"Fine, fine."

XXX

" _Did you hear? Wendy went to the capital. She's having an amputation."_

" _Oy, she was going to grow up so cute too. Stupid Romeo, trying to be a hot shit."_

Romeo took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind, but if he stepped foot in the guild, he heard whispers about what happened.

He would have given her his leg if he could, but he couldn't. In fact, he would have given up both legs to undo what happened, but that wasn't how life worked. There were no words to describe how he felt when he saw Wendy's leg that morning after the fight, and Nikki's ear, and yet the doctor turned to him and told him that he'd make a full recovery. The more time passed, the more it haunted him, and since she'd left, it was all he thought about. And when he was at the guild, there were those who made sure he remembered.

Fairy Tail, with over a hundred and thirty members, had three groups of wizards.

First, there was the top, the s-class wizards: Laxus, Natsu, Erza, Mirajane, Lucy, and Gray.

Then, there was the second tier, the people who were almost at or at that level like Gajeel and Juvia.

Below them was _everyone else_. Ninety percent of the guild was made up of wizards no one would ever know about, who were never going to become S-Class. Many weren't wizards for long, and others spent their entire careers feeding on the menial jobs, like Nab and Wakaba and even his own father.

Romeo identified these groups early on in life and determined that he wouldn't get stuck. He wanted to be S-Class someday and he didn't care what it cost him. But the thing was, it hadn't cost him anything; Wendy Marvell paid for his carelessness.

The ninety percent judged him fiercely. It was hard enough being a thirteen-year-old boy, but to have grown men making comments about how it was his fault Wendy's leg was being sawed off was simply unbearable.

No one who was at the top said anything bad to him, because when they were honest with themselves, they'd all put themselves and other people in harm's way on their way to the top. And they also know that if the fight had ended differently, he would have been praised as an ambitious renegade.

Being in the guild meant being confronted nearly constantly with disapproval, comments, and reminders that Wendy was permanently injured and weakened and it was his fault. Fairy Tail had been home for him all his life, but he didn't feel welcome anymore.

With each day that ticked by, he became a little more desperate, and a little more angry, and a little more laden with guilt until he felt like he couldn't breathe and a lack of forgiveness that constantly ate away at him, until he was frustrated and angry.

Everything started to unravel inside of him.

It was becoming unbearable, and Romeo wanted to talk to Natsu, but he hadn't been around.

On that day, he stormed out of the guild and ran, and ran, and ran some more. Romeo thought about how Gildarts - in an attempt to help him respect his father - told him that Macao hadn't become powerful because he chose to be a father instead. He thought about how Wendy would be okay if she hadn't ever chosen to follow him. He decided that we was mediocre at best, but that the people who chose to love him were far greater people who deserved better than him.

Romeo felt like he ruined the lives of the people who chose to care about him.

He was still just a kid, and he wasn't equipped to deal with his feelings. All he wanted was to have a day where he didn't have to think about what happened. And he realized that everyone at the guild would always know.

So Romeo ran away.

He left a note, and in it he apologized to his father and to Wendy and he said goodbye.

He packed a bag, and collected all the cash he had from jobs, and ran to the train station.

When he got there, the ticket attendant asked, "Where to?"

"Whatever's leaving next. I don't care."

"Round-trip?"

"No. I'm not ever coming back."

When he got on the train, he flopped down in the seat and fate met him right there with a new opportunity, a new life, a new everything.

RustyRose saw the mark on his arm, his dishevelment, and his clear distress. "Your face is like a poem that's too long for someone your age to write."

Romeo dug in his bag for his headphones, and found he'd left them behind. "Great, I have to listen to a weirdo."

"You're a member of Fairy Tail? That's their mark, is it not?"

The teenager crossed his arms. "Not anymore."

Former Grimoire Heart member RustyRose was a powerful wizard, but he had a skillful tongue as well. He did feel some sympathy, because the kid obviously just wanted someone to talk to, and when Romeo cryptically hinted at the fact he'd been responsible for a wounded girl losing a leg, the older wizard saw a strange opportunity before him.

RustyRose could see that most of what he was going through was purely in his mind. Fairy Tail was the kind of guild that stood by its members, rain or shine. But kids in the world of magic were always so vulnerable.

"In my former guild, there was a mistake and we tangled with the wrong enemy. When it was over, nearly no one was left. The burden of it was so heavy, and in my mind, I kept remembering those monsters. So vicious, so unyielding, so hard to break...in the end, everyone was defeated, dead, or had lost their minds," Rustyrose said, speaking of the battle between Grimoire Heart and Fairy Tail.

"What did you do?"

"One day I decided to start over. It's good to begin fresh, where no one knows what you've done."

RustyRose twisted the vulnerable teen around his finger, taking advantage of the weaknesses, doubt, and self-esteem issues Romeo was struggling with. He confided in RustyRose his resentment towards the naturally-tough dragon slayers, and the older wizard made him an offer.

"There's a kind of fire magic that rivals dragon slayer magic. It's called fire god slayer magic. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't be the best, because the truth is that the best is what's already in you. All you have to do is discover your potential and you'll be enabled to reach the future you desire."

They were beautiful words, but they were spoken by a wolf who happened to stumble upon a bleeding fairy.

RustyRose wondered what to do with him for a while. It wouldn't be hard to kill him.

He decided it might be a little more fun to let Romeo stew in his resentment toward Fairy Tail and send him around in a few years packing some serious heat. Romeo had fairy blood in him, so it wouldn't be an easy task, but RustyRose once heard Master Hades tell them that his relationship with the dark side of magic had been slow and somewhat romantic in that it grew slowly and turned into a pure desire.

Once Romeo finally got it all off his chest, he fell asleep, feeling at peace for the first time in a long time. He had hope for a new future. He felt grateful to have met someone who could be a friend.

He offered Romeo a place to stay, and let him crash on the couch at his apartment while he went to the home of dark guild Ouroboros.

Cobra looked up at him as he entered. "...you brought something back…"

"A ran into a fairy who lost his wings. He believes they were plucked by his brethren when he really tore them off with his own hands," RustyRose said.

Invel shook his head. "You have a fairy? Turn him loose, you idiot. We vowed in the beginning we wouldn't attract Fairy Tail's attention."

Kageyama nodded. "You can bet you'll end up with Natsu banging down the door, then what? Let me remind you that nearly every member of this guild has felt fairy fury."

After RustyRose explained the situation, Kain Hikaru, one of the few other survivors of Grimoire Heart, took two dolls and held them in front of each other. "I see. We make him fight them."

"In the good old days of Grimoire Heart, Ultear would handle this kind of operation," RustyRose said.

Cobra was really the least involved and while not a snitch, he showed signs he was ready to bolt from the cooperative. He could hear their thoughts, their motives, and their real mission required an objective mind; that was something none of them had. The Ouroboros guild was comprised almost entirely of people who had pitted themselves against Fairy Tail and lost miserably.

Vengeance was _not_ their goal, but on their chosen path they would eventually cross Fairy Tail.

There was a heated argument, and then an agreement.

XXX

While Romeo was running from his problems, Wendy was waking up to confront hers face-on.

Her eyes blinked open from a room in the biggest, most advanced hospital in Fiore. Light was spilling in through the window, and for a second, she forgot where she was. It wasn't an uncomfortable room, and the amenities were actually very nice. At least, there were nice to a girl who was a wizard, and had no problem sleeping outside or an in any number of inclement conditions.

Carla slept in the bed next to her, and in a chair beside the bed was her temporary protector.

Makarov said she'd arranged for her to stay with a family of one of Fairy Tail's closest allied guilds, but she was surprised to step off the train and find the infamous Bacchus Groh waiting for her. The extroverted, arrogant, playful wizard had four little sisters, mostly in their teens and they'd made her feel well at home since she first stepped foot in the house. She wasn't alone, and that had been her fear in going to the city.

Bacchus was known well to Wendy primarily for the embarrassing little fiasco where he was photographed kissing Lucy and was subsequently beaten very literally into the earth afterward by Laxus. His mouth had a fairly distinct scar from this encounter.

Wendy looked down at the bedsheet and could see the outline of her nub. Her mind was muddled by pain medication, but it still hurt to look down and know it was gone forever.

She remembered a conversation she'd had with Laxus on the way to Indus, where he warned her that it was harder for women to make it. He told her that between her age and adulthood, the number of men and women in the running for the top went from being nearly even to being primarily male, probably due to circumstances just like this.

Bacchus saw her distressed expression and held up what he'd been reading. "Laxus and Lucy got hitched, can you believe that?"

Wendy's head snapped up. "They married?"

He showed her the picture on the front cover, and passed the magazine over. "How depressing. Rumor has it she's pregnant."

"So that's why she was still sick," Wendy mused.

Bacchus slouched over in his chair. "You're pretty close to Lucy. What do you think my chances are at this point?"

"Your chances with Lucy?"

The man smirked. "According to the tabloids back then, she and I were having a love child. I mean, I don't mind. I could swoop in, steal the girl, raise the baby as my own. I really don't like that guy. He messed up this cute face," Bacchus joked as he pointed at himself.

"You kissed Lucy."

Bacchus scowled in his playful, melodramatic way. "Fuck that guy. He better watch his back. Let's say he has a life expectancy issue or decides to step out on that cute girl…"

"Are you really saying you'd be on Lucy's doorstep if Laxus died?"

"I mean, I'd wait the obligatory waiting period. You know, two, three weeks. Move in, comfort her in her time of bereavement, teach that kid to call me 'daddy,' you know, be a man about it."

Wendy shook her head. "Try to pull a stunt like that and it won't be your lips doctors have to stitch back on when Laxus gets finished with you."

Wendy could see pretty clearly why Laxus and Bacchus would never get along, with or without Lucy. Their personalities were contrary. Bacchus was an incredibly charming 'people person.' Laxus was a socially awkward 'beat people up person.'

She could see how Lucy ended up kissing him. He was very charismatic and funny and had a way of making everything seem okay, and she was grateful to have him around. He treated her like a little sister, and he didn't pity her and they didn't talk about how it happened.

The road ahead was long, and hard, but she tried not to think about it because it was almost too much for her to swallow. From here, the nub had to heal, and then she had to get fitted for a prosthesis. Then after it was built, she had to gradually start learning how to use it.

Wendy considered her future with unyielding determination.

The substitute of a big brother shook his head once at her expression. "Fairy Tail women are fierce as all hell."

"We have to be. That's what it means to be in Fairy Tail. We face our problems head-on, without fear, without regret, without giving up. No matter what it costs us. No matter what, we never run away. As long as we stick together, we win."

Bacchus was taken back by her words, but then he remembered Wendy at her young age had been part of the three-person Fairy Tail team responsible for bringing an entire country to its knees. She was a powerful woman in her own right, not only because she was a dragon slayer, but because she was unwilling to accept defeat.

XXX

Laxus smiled and adjusted himself as his new bride snuggled up close. It was mid-morning and he needed to get out of bed, pack a bag, and get ready to catch the afternoon train to find Natsu. He looked at the clock and said to himself he'd get up in ten more minutes.

Life made no sense to him, but it was okay, because he felt wonderful at this particular moment in life. Somehow, he found more purpose in the life he lived by falling in love accidentally and making a baby accidentally than all the years he'd lived according to tight little plans.

And really, fuck all the plans, he was going to be a dad.

Laxus stretched with a groan and put a hand on her back. "Do you want a boy or girl?"

Lucy looked up and smiled. "I don't know. Maybe a boy. I think it'll be great either way."

"I would prefer a girl."

She propped her head up on her hand. "What? Is this you of all people, going against male hegemony?"

"I dropped out of school in seventh grade. What the fuck is male hegemony?"

She kissed his forehead. "Don't worry your pretty little head. So...why do you you want a girl?"

Her husband said, "Have you thought about the men in our family? There's honestly enough dicks in the Dreyar family tree for now."

"Do you mean that literally or figuratively?"

"Babe, both."

Lucy rubbed her belly with both hands. "If we have a girl, what will we name her?"

Laxus answered without hesitation, "Mavis. We'll nickname her 'First.' If we ever have another kid, we can call them 'Second.'"

She giggled. "Maybe to Mavis, no to that nickname. I always felt like Mavis had a little crush on you. It was cute, right?"

One of his brows rose. "I don't date chicks with kids. Especially ones that are over a hundred years old and are undead. Baby Daddy drama with Zeref seems like it would be kind of problematic."

"I'm a chick with a kid."

Laxus rolled on top of her, propping himself on his arm. "That's the baby I put in your belly, Lucy."

Lucy reached up and put a hand on his cheek. "I think you're going to be a good dad."

"I hope so. You're going to be an excellent mother, that much I know. You're loyal, and patient. I figure if you can deal with me, a baby should be easy, right?"

She smiled and nodded. "I know I'm not the easiest to deal with either."

Laxus rested his forehead against hers. "I like you just like you are. There's nothing more incredible than a fierce woman."

Now that she thought about it, Laxus was a rare breed of man. Despite the sexist things that came from his mouth, he believed in the strength of women and he believed in protecting it. While the rest of the guild praised female wizards primarily for their looks, he was interested more in what they could do. He respected powerful women and he didn't ever try to force her into a place of real submission. He preferred her wild and strong and herself.

Lucy believed he'd probably be a really good dad to a daughter with those qualities, but if they had a son and he passed those beliefs down, that would be great too. After seeing Laxus with Nikki, she had great faith that no matter the gender of their baby, he was going to be an excellent father.

They made love, snuggled, and he finally forced himself to get out of bed, shower, and get dressed. The pregnancy very obviously had her tired, so he let her sleep as he finished getting ready. He kissed her softly, and headed downstairs with his bag in his hand.

Nikki was at the table working on his homework, and Laxus stopped in the kitchen for a sandwich.

"Nikki."

"Hm."

"Since Lucy is pregnant, can you keep an eye on her for me?"

Nikki looked up and nodded. "Of course. I'm an uncle-to-be. That's my job right?"

"So you are. I hadn't even thought of that," his brother answered, "She has an appointment on Wednesday. If I'm not back, you can go with her. Make sure she doesn't do too much, and try to get her to eat as much as possible. Magical pregnancies can be a little rough and a little dangerous, so it's important for her to take it easy. Don't let her lift anything heavy."

The boy nodded. "I'll look out for her."

Laxus made his sandwich. "Have you heard anything about Wendy?"

His brother didn't even look up from his work. "She's staying in Crocus with a friend of Master's friend? Some wizard name Bacchus. I saw an article about him in Sorcerer's Weekly. He seems really cool."

Nikki felt the whole atmosphere in the room change. "...what?"

"Stop fucking with me, Nikki."

"Eh?"

Nikki flipped to the article and pointed to him. "Do you know him or something? He seems awesome. Are you guys friends?"

Laxus took a bite of his sandwich and stared in annoyance at his brother as he chewed slowly. "I've known Bacchus since I was younger than you. He ranks pretty high on my shit list."

His brother frowned, because this was how these conversations usually went. Laxus was not good at making friends, and had no regrets about it. "Why?"

Laxus swallowed. "He tried to take something I felt was rightfully mine. So I punched him into a forty-foot crater. That's how he got that scar on his mouth."

"What on earth did he try to take that justified that?"

"Lucy."

Nikki gaped in surprise and pointed at the picture. "This guy, Bacchus, tried to steal Lucy from you?"

"We don't need to talk about that. Anyway, we should go see Wendy."

Nikki asked, "She'd like that, and you can gloat about marrying Lucy and having a baby, right?"

"Something like that."

 _ **Please Review!**_

 _ **Special thanks to SuperPsychoNutcase, Guest, boyceashlee, aviend, kurahieiritr JIO, katiekat2001, w1n6s-0f-f1r3, adabs18, ladyallyssa, thefangirlingfanboy, andy24amk, aryllia, thornado, yumeyumi1986, megumiyoung, 12rayne, rere97maul, lost-lovegoodm cosmo333, and paname for reviewing!**_


	23. Lucy Mom!

The biggest surprise of all?

Laxus left that afternoon to find Natsu, and he didn't come home.

Both men had vanished into thin air and there was literally no trace of them anywhere - not after a week, or a month, or even six months.

Lucy's pregnancy progressed regardless of Laxus' absence and a time that should have been filled with joy was marked by worry and fear. It was common sense that the dragon slayers were either being held captive somewhere or they were dead and the bodies were either undiscovered or completely destroyed.

Most of the time, she would have done anything just to know which. Her greatest fear was that she'd find out that he'd been dead all along. There was a part of her that felt connected somehow, and like the other side of that connection still existed somewhere. She never gave up, but she did cry a lot and as strong as she was, being pregnant without the baby's father around was terrible.

During her pregnancy, Makarov made nearly daily visits to the house, and Nikki did the best he could. Lucy hated asking him for help, but he was always happy to give it. Makarov tried to give her money a few times, but the house was paid for and she had all her cash from the Indus job on hand. What she really needed was Laxus, but hoping and praying and sweeping searches all proved to be equally fruitless.

On a calm spring morning, she went into labor and at eleven o'clock that night, she gave birth to Mavis Dreyar, a perfectly healthy blonde baby girl. The labor wasn't long, but the final stage turned out to be more terrible than it already would have been due to a pelvic injury she'd received during training.

She'd never felt such overwhelming love for another person in all her life, and yet, she still cried, because she didn't know if her daughter would ever meet her father.

Mavis was three hours old when Makarov came to visit.

Because Makarov had visited often, they'd had a number of conversations about the family and the baby. Lucy had become quite close to him and had even taken to calling him 'Gramps.'

Makarov held the baby and cried, because he didn't know if Mavis was ever going to meet her father either. He'd been happy for his grandson when he got married and had a baby on the way, and was looking forward to watching Laxus go through the things a new dad does: belly snuggles, kicks, insecurities, nervousness, cravings, decorating the baby's room…

Lucy went through most of these things alone, because even if she had the full support of the guild, there were some things that were only meant for her and her husband.

"She's got her father's eyes. Everything else is you," he said.

Lucy smiled softly. "I missed those eyes."

Makarov nodded. "Me too. It's hard for me, wondering, and not knowing, but I know it must be so much worse for you."

Lucy winced as she sat up. "I believe in Laxus. I don't know what happened to those guys, but I have faith in him. One of these days he's going to come home and after I beat him up really good, we can get back to our happily ever after."

"I don't want to mess with your emotions, because I know you're already in a really complicated place, but someone sent a letter to the guild. It's not signed. The person who wrote it said they'd accidentally become involved with a dark guild that has some ambitious goals. Names were given. The person said they weren't sure, but they believed the guild was involved with the disappearance of the dragon slayers," Makarov explained.

She nodded. "You'll look into it? In a few weeks, I'll be able to help."

"Like hell you will. I don't want you putting yourself in danger until Laxus comes home. You're a mother now, and if you run out and vanish too, what happens to your newborn daughter?" he asked.

"Gramps!"

"Lucy, focus on being a mother. Let me worry about my grandson."

Lucy didn't want to get her hopes up prematurely, because they'd been through this a few times too over the past months. All the searching, clues, and dark guild raids turned up exactly no information. All they knew was that Laxus and Natsu both went to a field outside Hargeon and literally vanished without a trace, without a sign of a struggle, without a sign they'd been killed, hurt, or captured.

The loss of the two really didn't just mean a lot for her either. Fairy Tail was missing two of its top three wizards and other guilds had felt a little more comfortable trying to claim that top place, although officially per the Grand Magic Games, Fairy Tail still ruled supreme.

The past months had been hard for the guild. They were missing two of their best wizards, Wendy was still in Crocus trying to learn how to use her prosthetic, and Romeo was just simply gone.

They had no idea that Romeo was in deep undercover on his own accord and had found great favor with the leader of the clandestine guild. Natsu was his hero, and he felt like playing along with Ouroboros might help him find the missing fairies. RustyRose felt like Romeo was properly brainwashed, but Romeo was only playing the game long enough to help his guild. It hadn't taken him long to realize that the spirit of Fairy Tail was with him always.

RustyRose had given him Zancrow's old book on Fire God Slayer magic, and he had excelled, growing fast and strong under the protection of a collection of people he secretly viewed as bitter losers. He'd been so scared at first, when he realized exactly who the wizards were that he was connected with, but he had a unique opportunity. He wasn't afraid of the danger, and as long as no one knew where he was, it was only his own life he risked.

Romeo had known about the disappearance of the dragon slayers since it was reported in newspapers early on, and he'd always suspected Ouroboros, but because Ouroboros was comprised of a lot of different wizards who didn't like or trust one another, it was highly factionalized even though there were many members; there were at least three hundred members, some of them 'sleeping' in legitimate guilds.

When the master of the guild called him to his side two months before, Romeo couldn't find a way to ask. But the week before, he'd heard a whisper between Invel and the dark master of the guild.

The goal of Ouroboros was to usurp the central government and cause Fiore - and eventually all of Ishgar - revert back to the pre-monarchical ages where the land was more or less ruled by powerful wizards who lorded over their own territories. But the legal guild system more or less supported the government, which meant that in order to topple the king, they had to dethrone the wizards at the top who would defend him.

They had weapons, plans, and all kinds of provisions to accomplish this.

Romeo didn't know for sure what happened with the dragon slayers, but he was starting to suspect that the guild master himself was involved. Really, if two of the most powerful wizards In all Ishgar vanished into thin air, there weren't a lot of possible suspects.

Makarov's letter with a list of Ouroboros members 'sleeping' in regular guilds had come from none other than Romeo Conbolt, who was in so deep with the guild he served at the feet of the master. Romeo did not name the guild master, because even some of the members didn't know who was actually in charge and if the letter was intercepted, he felt like he'd be suspected immediately.

And that was the reason Gray Fullbuster and Gildarts Clive ambushed Rufus Lore later that afternoon. The battle consisted of Rufus suddenly being blasted into two hundred copies of himself, all but one of which were instantly turned to a block of ice, leaving one tiny little Rufus.

Gray kicked the miniature Rufus into the air and then caught him with his hands. "I'm going to spare the cordial inter-guild cooperation bullshit and cut to the chase. We know you're part of a dark guild called Ouroboros. We know what you're planning. But we don't care about that right now. Where are Natsu and Laxus?"

Rufus cringed in this moment of absolute helplessness. 'Join us in secret,' they'd said. Somehow the secret led to him staring down two terrifying fairies on a day that should have been more than pleasant. His options were fairly grim at that point. All Makarov had to do was give his name to the authorities and he'd definitely be tried for high treason.

"How did you find out?" Rufus demanded.

"We have a big long list, so if you don't tell us what we want to know, we'll just kill you and move on to someone else until we get our answers," Gildarts said.

"If I tell you what I know, will you take my name off your list?" the memorization wizard asked.

Gray nodded and put him down and in a small voice, Rufus provided what information he had.

"They're alive, as far as I know. Invel has a weapon, and it requires high amounts of energy. Think of the Etherion cannon. It collects ethernano, concentrates it, and stores it in a lacrima. The body of a powerful dragon slayer is very similar but with the added bonus that a dragon slayer can turn terrestrial forms of energy into magic. Laxus can turn electricity into raw magic. Natsu can turn fire into raw magic. But I don't know where they are, and no one would tell me that. One wrong move when it comes to those two and everything ends."

Gildarts said, "Controlling their bodies would require very powerful magic. Power you don't have. Power Invel doesn't have. Give me a name."

Rufus tensed. "Draculos Hyberion. He's the leader of Ouroboros, not Invel. Only a few people know that."

Then it made sense.

Draculos, a wizard, was the second ranked wizard in Fiore and while Gildarts might argue Laxus could defeat him, if he used his magic to set a trap for them, well, that's what a trap is - a mechanism for changing the odds in a battle.

He also practiced magic that had the ability to temporarily paralyze opponents, which explained the lack of a struggle and signs of a fight.

"The Chairman of the Magic Council...is trying to overthrow the king," Gray mumbled in disbelief.

Rufus nodded. "You think it won't happen? Do you have any idea how many wizards are involved?"

"Don't know, don't care," the ice wizard quickly answered.

Gildarts and Gray allowed Rufus to return to his original form, and the man rubbed his side where he'd been kicked as he said, "Have you ever considered it? Why do we let a man who has no power rule over us? The Magic Council and the legal guild system are both intended to keep other powers from rising in the country so the king stays in charge. Things should change."

Gildarts shook his head. "What a pointless mess."

They left Rufus, and headed back to toward the train station.

"I wonder if Lucy had the baby yet," Gray mumbled.

Gildarts didn't answer him, because his blood was literally boiling at the idea this older, more powerful wizard would so severely derail the lives of two young, powerful Fairy Tail wizards. He was a humble man, but he believed himself to be stronger than any of the current saints and he had no problem putting that idea to the test.

The ice wizard asked, "What's the plan now?"

"I'm not going home until I kick Draculos' ass so hard he chokes on it," Gildarts said.

"How are we going to resist his paralysis magic?"

The crash magic master said, "Wendy. She has a spell that can break enchantments, right?"

XXX

Wendy was sparring with Bacchus in the park outside of the Quatro Cerebus headquarters when Gildarts and Gray stumbled upon her. She was fighting in a skirt, unabashed and unworried someone might see one of her legs was made from metal from the knee onward.

She had a minor limp, but as she moved, they saw she'd grown stronger, in body and in mind.

As a dragon slayer, the weight of the leg didn't bother her very much. In fact, it actually made for an upgraded kick.

Bacchus was a master at hand-to-hand combat, and Wendy had diligently trained with him every day since she got her prosthetic because she was eager to go home. It hadn't been a walk in the park, learning how to do everything all over again, but she'd worked so hard, gritted her teeth through the pain, and in the process, learned how to take and give a proper beating.

Wendy had learned she could do some things with a metal leg she couldn't do with her organic limbs, like push magic through it and give it power to either leap high or kick hard. It was becoming a strong point for her, even though it cost her so dearly.

The little girl that was afraid of both hitting and being hit was long gone, and Wendy was just fine with that. She didn't want to be a delicate little flower of a girl, and she didn't care if no one ever said she was cute again. What concerned her was going home to her guild, where life was apparently in disarray. Romeo was gone. Laxus was gone. Natsu was gone.

Everyone needed to come home and be together. A guild was a family, and there were too many scattered about.

It was only three days before she was scheduled to go home, but Fairy Tail came to find her instead.

Bacchus had not made good on any threat to move in on Lucy in Laxus' absence. Instead, he let Wendy help him pick out a nice gift for her baby and silently hoped the baby's father would come home. That situation was very sad and tragic for Lucy, and he wanted everything to turn out okay, even if it didn't look like that was an option.

He would never admit to this, however.

They stopped and Wendy ran to her guildmates and hugged Gray first, then after some consideration, hugged Gildarts as well. "You two! I'm so glad to see you!"

"Good to see you too. Sorry I didn't visit, I just...there's crazy shit going on at home. Makarov has been keeping more S-Class at home with Natsu and Laxus gone," Gray answered.

Wendy nodded. "I understand. I was going to go home later this week. I think I'm ready. It's time for everyone to be together again."

Gray crossed his arms. "The reason we came is that we have a lead on Natsu and Laxus. According to our source, they're being held by a dark guild run by Draculos. Gildarts and I are on our way to meet him, but he has an enchantment magic."

"I understand. I'm ready. I know he's got to be powerful, but we're Fairy Tail," she answered with determination.

Gildarts looked up. "Oy, Bacchus, you feel like getting your ass kicked today?"

"Why not?"

Some very basic research revealed Draculos was in Crocus at that very moment.

Knowing Draculos couldn't be too far from Laxus and Natsu and keep them enchanted, that meant they were somewhere in Crocus too. Maybe they'd been in Crocus all along; it was where Draculos lived.

Wendy had never caught their scents in the air, and she didn't know what Draculos smelled like, but the Gildarts' way of asking questions yielded fast answers, and they drew near to a mansion on the outskirts of Crocus.

Next to the king, Draculos Hyberion was the most powerful man in the country. As the top of the wizard saints and the Chairman of the Magic Council, he had a lot of pull and evidently no loyalty. He was old - old enough that Gildarts thought of him as being 'old' even when he was young.

When they neared, Wendy's nose twitched in recognition. She didn't tell anyone, because she didn't know why Romeo would be in such a place. Had he been captured? Ex-boyfriend or no, she didn't believe he was capable of truly turning on Fairy Tail, or that he'd be involved in a plot to hurt other fairies.

Upstairs, Draculos tensed for a moment and stood up in his chair. "Romeo."

"I'm here, sir."

The saint wizard said, "What does loyalty mean to you?"

"To me, it means having unwavering faith in what I believe in."

Draculos asked for wine, and Romeo brought it. When he finished pouring it, the older wizard asked, "Did you lose your loyalty to Fairy Tail?"

"That was my father's guild. This is mine. I believe the world should be a different kind of place than it is."

"I have always liked you, always favored you. I've heard at Fairy Tail you didn't have so much pull. I'm sure it was awful when that lightning-spitting horror of a Dreyar showed up," he said.

Romeo felt a stab of fear, but he hid it. It wasn't like Draculos to care about the finer details. For him to know about his past meant he'd asked someone about it. And it probably wasn't good if Draculos was asking about him.

Draculos stood up and went to his desk, where he pulled out a long dagger. "In the next era, I believe I'll raise you to serve at my right hand. But first, I need to know what you're really made of. Come with me."

Romeo followed him down a long, spiral staircase to the first floor.

The mansion was dark and old, and it continually smelled of strange incense.

The old wizard found Romeo was made of the right qualities to be a truly terrible person someday. He had a little broody, dark nature about him, but he was smart and he had a cleverness about him that gave him quite an edge over ordinary people. Without the god slayer magic, his abilities might have been squandered, but he was steadily rising and in a few years, would probably be among the elite.

Draculos took Romeo down behind a secret bookcase to a part of the mansion he'd never been to before. They walked in silence down a dark hallway. "Our war is about the begin. We have wizards in every major guild except one. We have regiments of the Council ready to turn at my call. We have generals in the army that will answer to Ouroboros as their authority."

Romeo's eyes stayed steady, and cold.

They crossed a rune barrier and entered a room covered floor to ceiling with complicated runes and carvings everywhere.

Hung on opposite sides of the room were Laxus and Natsu, and the runes were aglow as they sucked magic power out of their bodies.

He knew that Draculos was watching, and it took everything - _everything!_ \- not to break down and scream and try to fight.

"Prove to me your loyalty is with me. Kill one of them. I only need one, and it was honestly just purely stupid luck that Laxus Dreyar came looking for Natsu and fell on the rune trap."

Romeo took the dagger and considered his options carefully.

Well, he considered that he didn't have any.

The mansion was rocked when Gildarts blasted away most of what existed above ground.

Draculos looked up. "What's going on?"

But Romeo knew that magic, and knew he'd given Fairy Tail exactly what was necessary.

Draculos moved quickly when the dagger slashed at him and he looked down at a wild-looking boy. "What have you done?"

Romeo smirked. "You're too old to be that stupid."

Suddenly, everything turned to ice; the first contact was made between Invel and the attacking group and Draculos watched the ice crawl toward the runes that held Natsu and Laxus. The ice weakened them, and the wizard had to turn his attention to the ice wizards, because if he lost control of the dragons, things might go terrible very fast.

By the time he turned, Romeo had seemingly vanished. But Draculos knew him to be a fast little devil with movement that bordered on superhuman.

Romeo knew too much and had access to literally everything, having sufficiently lied and manipulated his way all the way to the top of the conspiracy that was supposed to bring Fiore to its knees. And while Ouroboros carefully schemed and recruited members of legal guilds, they had a traitor in their midst too.

If Romeo escaped, the whole plan might fall apart.

He knew the names, the faces, the acts, the organization, the plans - Romeo had been privy to everything as his closest, most 'loyal' servant. And Draculos had looked forward to molding and shaping him as he grew into adulthood, ignorant to the fact he'd already been fashioned into the form of a fairy and no aftermarket adjustments were possible.

To think the future of their plans was at risk because of a _fallen fairy_ …

Romeo ran up the stairs to where he saw Gray for the first time in six months. He was fighting Invel. There were four other 'big' wizards in the mansion on that particular day: Bluenote Stinger, Totomaru, Kain Hikaru, and Erigor.

Gray thought he caught a glimpse of someone, but by the time he looked over, Romeo was gone.

Bacchus ran into Kain Hikaru and had about zero bullshits to put up with the creep and his dolls.

Wendy tried to run after Romeo's scent and ended up at a dead ended hall near his room in the mansion, which was right between his former teacher Totomaro and Erigor's quarters. The sky dragon slayer was kickstarting a two-on-one with a fierce roar when they both attacked at the same time.

She dodged Erigor and watched Totomaru fly across the hall and through a wall into his own bedroom. Romeo sailed past her and continued a fiery assault, his fists wrapped in black fire.

Romeo slammed Totomaru into Erigor and then did a roar attack, igniting the whole wing of the mansion.

"Romeo!"

"Wendy!"

Wendy threw her arms around him briefly, and knew without question that this was the person who tipped off the guild. "Everything's okay now."

Romeo nodded. "Friendship is stronger than mistakes. So let's remember our friendship and forget the mistakes."

The sky dragon slayer nodded and they went back-to-back, facing their enemies courageously. The last time they'd faced difficult opponents, it had been with wrong motives, and with poor judgment. This time, they were still up against difficult opponents, but they had conviction and the power of their guild bond on their side.

Romeo had obviously powered up in a ridiculous and crazy way, but Wendy didn't ask questions, because she too was on a whole new level.

They were fire and wind against fire and wind.

Wendy said, "We have to do this fast. I'm here for a reason and this isn't it. The others might need me."

Totomaru, who had more or less watched Romeo grow up, stopped viewing him as a kid altogether. He was an adult in his own right, and he was capable of anything. The boy had laid up with Ouroboros for six months, climbed up to the position of Draculos' favorite, taken advantage of magic offered, and was now participating in ripping them apart from the inside out.

Erigor had faced Wendy in battle before, but the girl before him was hardly a girl. She was starting to get the curves of a woman, but she carried herself like the little monster she was. She had burning conviction and determination in her eyes, and her assault was relentless and overpowering.

The rebels wanted a world ruled by magic; it wasn't necessarily the most nefarious, evil plan in the world. It was honestly more confusing to those who participated in Ouroboros why more wizards didn't support it, although so many did.

Crash magic tore into the basement during Gildarts' confrontation with Bluenote Stinger, and the containment runes were destroyed. Draculos fled with a lacrima the size of a baseball that contained all the magic harvested from the dragon slayers over the course of six months. With a puff, he turned into a swarm of bats and vanished into the night

Down in the basement, the runes deactivated and Laxus and Natsu dropped to the floor with a thud and blinked back to consciousness for the first time in six months.

The fears over what would happen if they woke up were largely unfounded, because their bodies were drained and sick from being continually drained.

Natsu tried to move. "Wh-What...What's happening right now?"

"Fuck if I know," Laxus whispered as his limp body refused to move.

He did notice immediately his muscles were severely decreased in size, which suggested some time had passed.

The fights going on upstairs resolved in the predictable way. Without their leader, the others were somewhat helpless to defend themselves against opponents that were considerably more powerful.

When Council soldiers arrived to arrest, they found only wizards that were largely considered fugitives and proof of a massive conspiracy against the government that caused peace in Crocus to dissolve by the hour.

The Fairy Tail Wizards took their weakened dragon slayers to the infirmary at Quatro Cerebus.

The king demanded Romeo's presence, and he went and said everything that needed to be said.

By midnight, Council units were pulling 'sleeper' wizards out of their beds while they were actually sleeping and dragging them in for questioning. Bases were raided, stores were destroyed, and by the time the sun rose, it was apparent to all that the Chairman of the Magic Council was trying to overthrow the king that gave him his power.

Laxus awoke in the infirmary and the first face he saw was Bacchus.

"I must have died and gone to hell," he complained.

Bacchus was sitting in a chair with his arms and legs crossed. "You have no idea how long you were unconscious, do you? Six months."

"Six months…" he shot up in the bed. "Shit! Shit Shit! I have to go."

His legs were weak, and he was suffering some kind of weakness with his magic power, but he _had_ to get home. The idea that Lucy had been alone and pregnant for that long made his stomach turn in self-loathing even though he still really didn't know what happened. All he remembered was walking into a field. The next thing he knew, it was six month's later and he was in a dank basement with Natsu.

Bacchus gave him the details while he tried to dress in clothes one of the guild members had provided.

The scene outside was _complete_ chaos.

The entire legal guild system was about to be thrown into a state of war and he did not care.

The train station was closed, and Laxus resorted to lightning form, although he ran out of magic power fairly quickly and had to stop and rest a few times along the way.

XXX

At the Dreyar house, Lucy had just put the baby to sleep and was trying to eat dinner that Nikki had cooked for them when she _felt_ him. She dropped the glass in her hand and it shattered on the floor, and she took a few cautious steps to the living room.

The door opened with a creak, and there he was, alive, but not looking well at all.

Lucy threw her arms around him without a word, and she held him so tight.

He held her too. "I'm so sorry," he whispered.

Nikki saw his brother for the first time in six months, but stayed in the kitchen so he and Lucy could have some time.

When Lucy finally released him, he said, "I got captured. I don't remember anything."

"It's okay. I don't care. You're here. You have no idea how much I've missed you."

Laxus pulled her close again, trying to figure out what was going on. Her belly had a pregnant look to it, but not that pregnant. It was the week of her due date. It was confusing, so he asked, "Are you still pregnant?"

His wife looked down at her stomach. "Laxus, I already gave birth. It just kind of looks like that still. Close your eyes, okay?" She pulled him by the hands and had him sit on the couch. "I'll be right back. Don't open your eyes until I tell you."

Lucy went upstairs for their sleeping newborn and carefully made her way back downstairs.

The baby let out a little noise as she entered the living room and he said, "Was that…?"

Lucy sat down next to him and he could smell an unknown scent that was distinctly Dreyar in nature. "Okay, open your eyes."

Laxus looked down at the little pink bundle in her arms and felt his heart skip a few beats. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think, he couldn't even think about thinking. Up until that moment, he would have sworn love at first sight wasn't real.

Lucy gently said, "This is your daughter, Mavis Dreyar. She's five days old."

"My God…you had a baby…"

She nodded.

He was upset he'd literally missed everything, but he didn't feel like it was a time to apologize or to bring any of that up. It went without saying that Lucy had probably gone through hell trying to have a baby by herself, and he was grateful he had such a strong woman.

This moment was about family, and about the precious little newborn baby girl.

"Can I hold her?" he asked.

Lucy carefully transferred Mavis to his arms. "Newborns can't hold up their own heads, so make sure you support her little head."

"I don't know...anything. I'm sorry."

"You have no idea how happy I am to see you. Whatever isn't what it needs to be, we're in this together and we're going to be all right. Mavis needs her father, and I need my husband. We're a family, and family sticks together," she said.

Laxus felt a lump in his throat he couldn't quite swallow. "She's beautiful. You're both okay?"

His wife nodded. "She's perfectly healthy. Me too. My body has to recover from giving birth. That's kind of a big deal."

"I wish I could have been there. I'm sorry I wasn't."

She shrugged and snuggled up to his arm. "It's okay, really. I screamed, I cried, I pushed, and then Mavis was born."

Laxus didn't put the baby down for two hours. Mavis was in all ways fascinating to him from her Lucy-blonde hair to her little toenails. After a while, they took the baby upstairs and let her sleep between them while they watched her together.

Her husband seemed a little awe-stricken and filled with wonder, but then again, he went to sleep and she was three months pregnant and woke up to a baby. And, he loved Mavis. It was so incredibly obvious that he was madly in love with their daughter from the first time he saw her.

Lucy finally fed the baby and put her the bassinet Lucy put in their room when it was time for everyone to sleep. They showered and got ready for bed and once the lights were out, she crawled into his arms and cried, in part because she'd just been through the most difficult ordeal of her life, and in part because she was so happy their family was whole again.

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	24. Lucy Family!

And finally, they were all home.

Fairy Tail had been missing four wizards for six months, and once they were all back together again, it was cause for a celebration even though the rest of the country seemed to be on the verge of breaking out into a civil war.

Army regiments were fighting Council regiments, there was infighting in both groups, and attempts to arrest rebels for treason were greatly hampered by the fact the Chairman of the Magic Council had installed loyalists all the way up the chain of command.

Makarov's instructions to all his children was to come home, stay put, and to not leave Magnolia unless the King directly asked for the guild's involvement. The government was trying to resolve the conflict without escalating it, and if all the legal guilds jumped in at once and fought, the escalation would be total. If wizards went to war with other wizards all over the country, innocent people would inevitably die, cities would be decimated, and the conflict might last a while.

The king's priority was to ensure the safety of all people, so he wanted to dispense of the chaos with as little collateral damage as possible.

Every day, the newspaper unveiled a little more of how wide and sweeping the conspiracy actually was. There was massive infighting in several prominent guilds, even among friends, and people that Fairy Tail might have considered casual allies.

Laxus didn't really care about any of that, although 'kill Draculos' ranked pretty high on his to-do list, no one knew where he was, or any of his upper-tier.

According to Romeo, there were three lieutenants under Draculos:

First, there was Invel, who was arrested on the night Gildarts and company raided Draculos mansion. Invel was in charge of the weapon and runes that sucked all the magic out of the kidnapped dragon slayers.

Second, there was Cobra, who was in charge of orchestrating cooperation from dark guilds. Cobra was distant from the central part of the guild and was rarely seen or heard by anyone. Romeo had never seen him in person, which was fortunate because Cobra would have easily known what his real thoughts were.

Third, there was RustyRose, whose charismatic sociopathy made him an ideal person to recruit members of legal guilds for the cause. Romeo had spent the most time with him, so the teenager's betrayal had a catastrophic impact on his branch of Ouroboros.

Laxus knew it was really only a matter of time before Fairy Tail clashed with Draculos, if not with some of the other high-ranking members of Ouroboros who were still at large. Until that time, he was content to stay at home with his little family and read about the crackdown in the newspaper while he worked on getting his body back into proper fighting shape. His muscles had partially atrophied, but the real issue was some strange form of magical exhaustion that came from giving off magic on full-tilt for six months. That took a little time to recover from, and Porlyusica said there was no remedy except time.

He was fine with that, because he had no intention of going anywhere anyway.

Laxus Dreyar had a baby, and she and her mother were at the absolute top of his list. He had no other priorities. At all. So he enjoyed peace at home while his body recovered.

On the day she turned two months old, they woke up from an afternoon nap to the sound of Mavis crying and after calming her down, Laxus brought her downstairs so Lucy could sleep as she'd been up most of the night before.

Nikki, his girlfriend Emily, Romeo, and Wendy were all sitting around the table while they played a board game. They were laughing and they were having a good time. They looked like kids again, and the fact that they were all okay was a testament to how strong they were.

Over the time that passed, each of the wizards had became considerably more powerful and they now truly looked like the future of Fairy Tail.

"Laxus, can I hold the baby?" Wendy all but squeaked.

Laxus generally didn't want anyone holding the baby, but Wendy was almost like family to him and Lucy. He decided it might provide him with decent entertainment anyhow.

When Wendy took the baby, he said, "Careful."

Wendy held Mavis as gently as she could and looked down at her in awe. "She's so beautiful. She looks just like Lucy."

"Are you saying she wouldn't be cute if she had this face?" Laxus pointed up at himself.

Nikki nodded. "Pretty much."

Wendy turned to Romeo and said, "Isn't she cute, Romeo?"

And this was exactly the entertainment Laxus was looking for.

Romeo suddenly turned outrageously red. "Wh-Why?"

"What do you mean, why?" Wendy asked.

Laxus sat at the end of the table and smirked. "Romeo, you like the way Wendy looks holding a baby? That's kinda cute."

"GAAH! No!" he stammered.

"Fast forward ten years and it's your kid. Ten at least. If it's less than ten, I'm gonna kick your ass," Laxus teased.

Wendy finally got what he was hinting at and blushed furiously. "We're not even together! Stop that, Laxus!"

Laxus said, "Then why are _you_ blushing? See, Romeo has no idea how the mind of a woman works. I'm married."

"The guy who got married and disappeared while his wife had a baby alone is now the authority on women?" Wendy snapped.

The lightning dragon slayer laughed. "Romeo, don't get discouraged. Feisty women make excellent company."

The baby started crying and Laxus took her back, but she remained fussy.

Emily said, "Let me try." The baby stopped crying immediately as she bounced her just slightly. "I have five little brothers."

Laxus attempted to jostle his little brother. "Well?"

Nikki was unbothered, nonchalant, and unembarrassed. He rolled his eyes, gave his brother an expression of somewhat bored irritation, and said, "You're turning into Gramps."

Undeterred, his older brother leaned over and rested his head on his hand. "Emily will be be a good mom someday. What do you think?"

"As a fourteen-year-old male, that's the first thing I look for in a girl," he sarcastically answered.

Emily gave him a terrible look and he flinched visibly. "Nikki! Don't bring me into your little boy rivalry!"

"Em…"

She was blushing, but still handling the baby with expert care.

This was just as entertaining to Laxus. His brother inadvertently pissed his girlfriend off and then sat there sticking his foot farther into his mouth while she chewed him out. Getting his little brother fussed at by his girlfriend might have been the high point of his day had he not seen his daughter yawn that morning.

Laxus had been very wary of him dating an 'ordinary,' and even more surprised that his brother still had Emily after that long since he himself hadn't been capable of 'relationshipping' until Lucy came along.

Emily Faure was the recently crowned Junior Miss Fiore, and boyfriend to the 'Prince of Fairies.' No one seemed to know how Nikki ended up with that title, but it had stuck somehow as he grew into his dragon genes and was starting to make his little mark on the world. They were the 'it' couple of the young teens age group.

Because she was so sweet on Nikki, Laxus decided to let his brother choose his own girlfriend and reluctantly gave up on the idea of the girl dragon and the boy dragon being together. The girl dragon was still hopelessly crushing on Romeo, even if she was pretending she wasn't for the time being.

Romeo had gained pretty serious notoriety for lying his way to the top of a conspiracy that would have plunged the country into chaos, powering up lost magic on their good faith in him, helping the dragon slayers get their freedom, and then pretty much wrecking the whole plan on his way out. That was a rare kind of badass, and he'd grown into it during his time with Ouroboros. He came back sly, confident, and strong.

The chances he'd care by this point what Vijeeter or Nab thought about Wendy's leg were pretty slim. Laxus assumed he'd probably kick someone's ass for bringing it up at that point.

Laxus took his daughter once she'd fallen asleep and carried her back upstairs to their bedroom.

Lucy was in the shower, and so he sat on the bed with the baby until she came out. Their schedules had become strange and sort of upside down. Newborns didn't seem to know about schedules, so they ate and slept as Mavis allowed them too.

His wife entered the room in her bath robe, grinning at him. Everytime she looked at him, he had the baby. Laxus carried her everywhere, all over the house, and barely let Mavis out of his sight. There were a lot of things he was unsure about because he pretty much instantaneously became a parent, having missed almost the entire pregnancy. But he loved that little girl to death and could hardly put her down.

Lucy crawled into the bed with him and snuggled against his arm. "You have no idea how happy I am to be with you now. I didn't know if we've ever get to be like this, together with the baby."

He felt a stab of guilt at the reminder of his absence and bent down to kiss her. "You're ridiculously strong, you know. It had to be someone like you. If things had been different, I know you would have been able to raise the baby well by yourself if you had to."

"I thought a lot about it. Being a single mom is really a terrible idea. But women raise babies by themselves all the time, all over the world. A father is a really important thing you know?"

Laxus shrugged. "I kind of don't."

Lucy ran her hand over the baby's hair. "Mavis knows. I bet you're going to be a really overprotective dad. Let's say she hits Nikki's age and has a little boyfriend."

"Look, we both know that's not going to go well for anyone, especially whoever is actually that stupid."

His wife grinned. "Maybe she'll find someone you like. A nice boy like Uncle Nikki."

"Nice boy, my ass. 'd be willing to bet Nikki has at least had a good feel at this point."

Lucy took the baby from him and cooed, "Daddy's already plotting to kill your first boyfriend, isn't that sweet?"

Laxus crossed his arms and sulked a little. "But, let's say I didn't come home, or they found my body somewhere. Would she have a step-father?"

Lucy was highly unamused by this question and answered, "Are you asking if I'd go out and find her a new dad?"

"If I die at any point, I understand you might marry again. Just...not Bacchus."

After a long, blank stare, Lucy sighed and balanced the baby on her shoulder, using her free arm to elbow him in the stomach so hard he couldn't breathe for a few seconds. "Laxus, if you don't want me to marry Bacchus, don't die. Because if you do, I'll do it out of spite."

"Well, it's settled. I'm going to become an immortal."

The conversation had a somewhat joking tone, but he heard her sniffle and her eyes watered up.

"Babe…"

Lucy exclaimed, "Please don't ever talk like that to me. You don't have a right. You don't know what we went through without you. Being able to fight or being S-Class didn't matter at all, I was still just pregnant and alone and I was mad at you for doing that to me!"

He flinched and bowed his head. "I'm sorry, Babe. It wasn't really my plan to be a shit husband."

"I'm just glad we're able to be together as a family. Don't bring up anything else."

"Family…"

It had been such a weird, foreign word to him growing up. 'Family' meant the people to whom he was related by blood: his twisted, crazy father and his peculiar, loving grandfather. Now, it meant his wife, his brother, and his precious little baby girl in addition to his father and grandfather. He never really had many connections to others, but now he wasn't just a wizard or someone's grandson. He was a husband, a brother, and a father.

This made him happy in a way he didn't quite know how to articulate. Laxus wasn't even sure if there were words in any language that described how strangely complete he felt there with them, his cute little wife and their beautiful little daughter.

"We have a family. You're my family," he said in awe.

Lucy leaned on him as their baby wiggled a little and yawned, letting out a squeaky little sound. "Being cute is apparently a very tiring activity. She's so sleepy."

"You're so cute then I'm amazed you find the energy to bother with me," he teased.

She ruffled his hair with her free hand. "Only because you're handsome. If you weren't so good looking and left me alone, you'd come home to Mrs. Groh."

"Ugh, more Bacchus jokes. I forgot to rub it in his face we got married."

"Was that important to you?"

"Extremely."

"You are childish and ridiculous."

"You are beautiful and smart. I feel like I got the good end of the deal."

Having a baby put Lucy back in touch with a the more feminine side of herself. Laxus - for better or worse - loved her as the monster she was. He didn't force her to pretend to be a girly girl and he liked her rough or sweet or however she happened to come at him that day. But being strong as a wizard was making her a little hard as a person, a process that was wholly reversed by being in the most vulnerable situation a woman can find herself in.

And subsequently, being mother to a newborn, she was balancing out with the softer side of herself that hadn't been seen often. It felt right and good and warm and it was a nice break from the near continuous streak of bash and crash her life had been since she came to Fairy Tail.

Lucy fed and changed the baby and put her in the bassinet next to their bed, and then snuggled up to her husband. "I'm really surprised you haven't asked yet."

"About what?"

"Sex."

"I kind of assume there's a waiting period. The baby seems incredibly small to be a person yet incredibly large to have come out of your body. That's kind of a tight space, you know," he said.

His wife kissed him softly. "I'm still a little bit sore from that stupid pelvic fracture. The doctor said to wait a bit longer."

The baby started crying and Laxus got up immediately and picked her up again.

"Laxus, have you noticed she cries every time we put her down? Maybe we shouldn't hold her too much."

"If this kid cries, I'm going to do whatever she wants."

Lucy sighed. "You're going to let a baby run your life?"

"I can't really say no."

Lucy suspected in that moment that her husband might be subject to the whims of their daughter in that fashion indefinitely, but Laxus already knew he was. And he felt like it was acceptable, because he'd waited literally his entire life to have a family and now that he had one, he wanted everyone to be happy.

"Laxus…"

"I love this squishy little face. It looks like another face I really like to see," he said.

His wife didn't have the nerve, time, or effort to try and lecture him about spoiling the baby because he was so happy to have the baby and Lucy was so happy he was there to hold her. Laxus Dreyar did everything to the utmost maximum, so when he loved, he loved hard. He would very literally do anything for someone he chose to love.

There were worse things than a man spoiling his newborn half to death, like the idea that they might never have met.

The baby seemed to have already figured out Daddy was a big sucker for her.

The doorbell rang and Laxus heard the door open and sensed familiar magic in the house. "Gildarts…"

Gildarts showing up was like an announcement destruction was pending.

So he got out of bed and headed downstairs barefoot with his baby, who he wanted to show off to the older man.

Gildarts was standing in the living room with Nikki, who had opened the door for him.

The redhead chuckled at the sight before him. "Hey Dad!"

Nikki offered him coffee, which he accepted, and Gildarts looked around to find all kinds of signs of life at the Dreyar house. It smelled like food, there were pictures on the walls, all the teenagers were there and having a good time, and there was Laxus with his little baby girl.

"Who would have thought the guild problem child would get his shit together? Gimme!"

Laxus allowed Gildarts to hold Mavis and he had a predictably melodramatic response to her existence.

"You're so beautiful, you must take after your Mommy!" he exclaimed.

Laxus crossed his arms. "So what the fuck do you want?"

Gildarts smirked. "You want to go on a little hunt, dragon? The king has personally requested Fairy Tail hunt down and dispose of Draculos because even the Council believes only you or I might be able to take him down. We'll take the resident enchantress."

"Wendy," Laxus called.

"I think Mom would be a good fit as well," the older man said.

Laxus shook his head. "She's not ready for that kind of thing."

"Reports say Draculos is hiding in the area where Fairy Tail busted the Oracion Seis. We will probably find Cobra with him, and that guy was on his last chance a few chances ago."

"I take it the king doesn't want us to arrest a repeat escapee," Laxus said.

Gildarts nodded. "They'd prefer we kill everybody. Draculos would be hard to keep in prison and Cobra has broken out a few times. This isn't a small scale problem...all these wizards that have been implicated aren't going to jail. High treason is an offense that wins you a hot date with a cold executioner."

Laxus found it all a bit messy, but it was what it was. Beth from Mermaid Heel was a big time organizer, and he found it hard to believe the king was really going to execute the girl who throws carrots. Then again, she knowingly worked as part of a plot to kill the king and plunge the country into the dark ages. It which was really deep. Especially for a chick who throws vegetables as a form of offense.

It was all pretty crazy and Fairy Tail was thankfully the only major guild that didn't have an Ouroboros member in it.

That said, Laxus knew Gildarts was asking for help, and that was something Gildarts just didn't do. A Draculos, Cobra, RustyRose, and others versus Gildarts, Laxus, and Wendy seemed a bit heavy still, especially since they needed Wendy to protect them against Draculos' enchantment but she was otherwise a bit green to be at that kind of party.

They decided to invite Natsu to this party, because what the fuck was anybody going to do about a Gildarts, Laxus, and Natsu team? Especially when one considered the little boost little dragon sister Wendy gave them?

They made their plans and then Laxus realized he had to go tell Lucy he was leaving her again.

He frowned at the idea, and stared at the ceiling for a minute. "Shit."

Gildarts was cooing over his baby while he contemplated doom. "You're such a pretty girl. I bet your daddy spoils you rotten, doesn't he? He just pretends to be a badass he's really just a big, mushy papa. I can't wait until you get a boyfriend too!"

People who had mentioned that his daughter would someday have a boyfriend: Lucy, Gildarts, Makarov, Gray, Elfman, Mirajane, Happy, Freed, Bixlow, Evergreen, Macao, the next door neighbor, and Master Bob.

"So I'm going to snap some poor stupid fuck's neck in about fifteen years. And everyone is looking forward to it."

Gildarts toyed with one of her hands. "And you'll say 'I'll love who I want, Daddy, and you can't stop me!' And Daddy will say, 'You're my daughter and you're not leaving this house dressed like that!' And you'll say, 'I'm a teenager and I can be rebellious if I want to!' and then all Daddy's friends will remind what an arrogant, terrible shithead he was when he was a teenager."

"Shut your mouth and give me that baby right now."

"Awww, Daddy has an angry?"

Laxus took his squirmy little baby girl and glared ferociously at the older man. "What's wrong with you? Dad your Father of the Year Award go to your head? Or was that just the alcohol damage caused by the seventeen years you were too drunk to realize you had a kid?"

Gildarts laughed heartily and sighed. "I'm so glad you decided to grow up. You're more fun these days."

Laxus narrowed his eyes and went back to thinking about how to politely tell Lucy he was going to pack up and go away into great danger, but then he remembered she was a wizard and she was Lucy.

He went upstairs, carrying the baby everywhere as had become his custom, and found Lucy sitting at her desk, writing.

Lucy looked up. "Let me guess, you're leaving?"

"The king asked Fairy Tail to deal with Draculos and Cobra. That may be something that takes Gildarts and me both. I'd love to say 'fuck off I have a baby' but I don't want things to get worse either."

He put Mavis down in her crib and went to the closet to grab a bag.

"Cobra...how much trouble is he in?"

While he threw clothes into his bag, he said, "Lucy, not everyone wants to be good and play by the rules."

"I want to come."

Laxus looked up with an expression that said, 'hell no,' but gently replied, "Easy, Lucy. We have a newborn. Your body isn't back like it would need to be for a battle like this. Besides, Mavis needs you. It's not like Fairy Tail is going to run out of fights. When you're ready, I'm sure there will be more trouble for you to get into."

He kissed her cheek. "I'll be back as soon as it's finished, okay? And then I'll spent a long time here just with you."

Lucy nodded and stood, grabbing his hand and pulling him close. She put her hand on his face. "I love you, and I'll see you soon, okay?"

Laxus turned to kiss her hand, then her lips. "I love you too. I'll hurry back. I don't want to miss anything else."

 _ **Please Review!**_

 _Special thanks to Bentears, booklover013, balerion, boyceashlee, paname, katekat2001, w1n6s-0f-f1r3, yumeyumi1986, lunastarlady, xxshyxx, thornado, chaoticnightmarez, H.M. Akhlys, aoutre, 12rayne, edelweissWhiteTiger, katelyn, guest, cosmo333, reremaui, kennedydreyar, kurahieiritr JIO, and axltz for reviewing!_


	25. Lucy Blackout!

Laxus really hadn't considered loyalty to his country much, if at all, before he found himself in Indus and looked at the ruin and destruction that some of the people there experienced under the poor leadership of the government. It made him think about home, and how for better or worse, Fiore was a country where everyone celebrated and suffered equally.

A land rich with magic, before the monarchy, the nation had been comprised of seventeen warring feudal states. The average life expectancy of a man was less than forty; these were facts everyone knew if they'd passed any history class ever in school. Wizards ruled over ordinary people, and ordinary people suffered greatly.

It wasn't the kind of country he wanted to live in, and it wasn't the kind of country he wanted to raise his daughter in.

Laxus was sure they had a nasty fight ahead of them, and on their final approach, he and Natsu froze instantly, with Wendy half a second later.

"What?" Gildarts asked.

Natsu growled, "Lucy's scent is close."

"The baby's too," Laxus added.

Wendy said, "That doesn't make any sense. We left, and we came straight here. How could Lucy end up here before us?"

"Racer," Natsu said, "His scent is fresh along this same path."

Laxus knew Lucy could fight her way out of anything, but with the baby…

In his mind, he ran through a thousand scenarios and all of them ended terribly. Their baby couldn't even hold her own head up, so she would be injured just from someone holding her the wrong way. There was no guarantee she hadn't already been injured, especially if there had been any kind of fight.

Gildarts sensed a fast-approaching presence and picked up a rock, which he hurled into the woods, colliding with a little ball of light that turned into Nikki once knocked out of motion.

He was out of breath, and bleeding from a wound on his right arm.

"What happened?" Laxus asked.

Nikki shrugged. "I don't know. It happened really fast. I heard the baby scream kind of weird and there was a guy. Lucy was unconscious, and your room had a chemical smell. He cut me and he was just _gone_. He left a scent trail. I'm sorry."

"Lucy will probably be okay, but the baby…" Laxus said.

Nikki held up her keys.

"Shit."

Laxus was quiet for a long time, trying to formulate a plan. He was supposed to be a master tactician, but his mind clouded over with fear, with worry, with _absolutely blind fucking rage_. It was one thing to touch Lucy; honestly, she was prone to kidnapping and he didn't concern himself with her safety because she was a ferocious woman and she could save herself.

But the baby?

They had at least three major opponents: Draculos, Cobra, and RustyRose. Racer and probably other second-level enemies were ahead as well. Their team had the firepower to contend with them, and the best plan of attack would have been to surround them and come down with the fury of the gods, but somewhere ahead was Mavis Dreyar.

Gildarts said, "Do we have an idea of where the kid's scent is?"

"I can't pick it up," Natsu answered.

It was a fainter, milder scent than that of an adult, but Laxus knew it well. He'd spent hours and hours holding the infant, and Nikki was similarly familiar. He took a deep breath and pointed. "More eastward."

"Then we should attack from the west," the older man said.

This would put them at a terrifying disadvantage, and all of them knew that, but if they could pull the big threats away, they were less likely to catch the baby in the middle.

Gildarts pointed at the kids. "If your kid brother can use lightning form, and he knows the scent, we'll let Wendy enchant us, and then the kids can go find the baby and he can get her out of here, and get Lucy's keys to her. Wendy comes back to us, Nikki goes south to Blue Pegasus...that's the closest safe point. Can you handle that?"

Nikki nodded.

Laxus was grateful for his guild, for Natsu who would gladly put his life on the line for Lucy on any day of the week, for Gildarts, who was probably unkillable but accepted the risk anyway because he missed his chance to be father to a baby girl, for Wendy's unwavering determination for the future, and for Nikki's undying loyalty to family.

"Let's do it."

XXX

Inside the broken, busted-up remains of Nirvana, Lucy awoke.

Racer had sedated her with while she was asleep, so she had no memory. At all. Of anything. The last thing she remembered, she had put the baby down to sleep and then crawled into bed. The next thing she knew, she found herself in the vaguely familiar, dark, screwed-up insides of the monster of yesteryear.

She was chained to the ceiling.

"Damn, can I not get kidnapped for once? Geeze. The damsel in distress thing gets so old," she grumbled.

A sound reverberated down a long, metal-paneled, twisted hallway, and her heart started to race.

The baby. Someone had taken _the baby_.

Her mind quickly recollected that Laxus had just left to put the smackdown on the top of the government conspiracy to overthrow the king, and she tried to make a careful plan. She didn't have her keys and she felt like they might be far away.

Without the keys, she only had kinetics. She was infinitely grateful that Laxus gave her this magic, as it was a card she could always play in a fix. Lucy jumped and climbed the chain held bound to her left wrist twenty feet to the ceiling, jumped, and used the magic resulting from her landing to rip them from the metal cuffs on each wrist.

In the absence of a whip or any other weapon, she pulled one of the chains from the ceiling. She was really just that pissed.

Down the hall in one of the less wrecked rooms, Cobra was sitting on a couch staring down at their little captive. It was his job to look after the baby, and he felt a little more than disgusted with himself and the entire operation at this. His instructions were to bring the baby to the fight if one broke out, but he knew Laxus had already attacked and had done nothing.

He'd really never been close to a real, live baby before, and when Racer brought the newborn in, he was alarmed to find it was his job to tend to her.

The only reason he'd even become involved with Ouroboros was so that he could have an opportunity to live a life out of the shadows, but somewhere in the fine print, the organization was nefarious and wanted far worse than anything he desired.

Cobra didn't want want people to get hurt for no reason. Most of the dark guild's members just wanted a different kind of government, but Draculos preached a utopia but practiced nothing but murder and insanity.

The baby screamed constantly with Racer, and she had a scratch on her forehead with a bump. His ears heard a baby dragon screeching for her parents, and Cobra was sure there was going to be hell to pay. When she seemed to calm down, he felt relief.

He picked up the newspaper, trying to find some distraction. On the page he happened to pick up, there was a trivia question.

 _What terrestrial energy force is up to five times hotter than the surface of the sun?_

He flipped the page for the answer:

 _Lightning_

Cobra put the newspaper down and frowned; it that wasn't a bad omen, he didn't know what was. "Five times hotter than the sun. God, whose idea was it to snatch this kid?"

The baby started to cry, and he heard her thoughts.

"You want me to pick you up? I'm the bad guy."

Mavis kept crying and halfway out of curiosity and halfway out of a desire to not hear her pitiful cries, he gently picked her up and found her little body was kind of squishy and noodly all at once. She felt so tiny and fragile as he held her against his shoulder. He could hear her heartbeat, and her simple but pure little thoughts. She was a little cold, she was hungry, and she wanted her parents.

Racer zipped into the doorway. "Boss wants the kid. Daddy's being nasty."

Cobra's mouth went a little dry at Racer's thought, ' _I don't know why he's holding the kid we're about to kill.'_

"Sawyer, we can't do this."

"Why? You going soft?"

Cobra didn't answer with anything more than a quick fling of poison that hit the unsuspecting wizard.

Racer was slowed down enormously by the poison sinking into his skin and causing his heart to palpitate. It wasn't going to kill him, but Cobra was a nasty villain to face. He felt so droopy and drunk almost, but he knew the pain would follow shortly.

He didn't understand why the Oracion Seis had fallen into such different ends. Some were with Jellal, some with Draculos, and some were doing whatever they needed to do.

He wanted to live in a world where they would all be together, forever. Draculos promised him that, but Cobra made it clear that they weren't the same. He'd been leaning increasingly more moralistically over the past couple of months, probably because he was sneaking around with one of the Fairy Tail barmaids.

Sawyer was halfway down the hall when a heavy chain wrapped around his throat and Lucy pulled him in and kicked him in the skull heart enough he was disoriented for a few seconds.

Lucy got on top of him, holding the chain like a leash, tugging at it to choke him. " _Where is my baby_?" she growled.

Now, officially, he'd been told by Draculos that because she'd recently had a baby, she wasn't much to worry about. He'd also left her keys at home, but as he sat there being choked by this furious mama bear, he realized she was an absolutely terrifying person.

But he'd heard rumors she killed a dragon slayer by herself.

Lucy punched him. "I asked you a question! Where is my baby you freak?!"

"Fuck off, lady."

Lucy snatched his sunglasses off and threw them, and then pushed her thumbs over his eyelids as he clenched them shut. His punched at her side, but she was completely undeterred.

Cobra heard the commotion and knew he had to make a decision within the next few minutes. He heard the sound of climbing nearing the window, and a couple of kids jumped in. One, he recognized as Wendy, and she recognized him. The other he assumed to be the lookalike kid brother of the infamous Laxus Dreyar.

Nikki's nose crinkled. "I know your scent."

"I doubt it."

"Kinana. Your scent is on hers sometimes like my brother's is on Lucy when he's at home. I help her sometimes, at the guild."

Cobra really had desired the right to live a nice and normal life with her, but that was farther from his reach than it had ever been. He'd charged up to many crimes, too often, and no matter what, he always lost in the end.

Draculos was suddenly approaching quickly, probably to get the hostage, and Cobra said, "Take her and get out of here."

Nikki took Mavis gently, and the baby's cries eased at the familiar scent.

Cobra took Lucy's keys. "I'll get these to her. Just go!"

Nikki took lightning form and was gone five seconds before Draculos entered the room and with the flick of his wrist, Cobra was paralyzed and fell to his knees. Wendy was going to try and find Lucy, but she couldn't leave Cobra, even if he was a seasonal 'bad guy.'

She tried to cast an enchantment to help him resist the saint wizard, but Draculos used his powers to throw her against the wall, paralyzing her so she couldn't even breathe. Cobra moved to slash at him with poison claws, and Draculos stopped him mid air and caused his body to turn so his back was facing Draculos.

Wendy saw the dagger, and she couldn't move.

She tried to strengthen her enchantment to fight the effect of the other wizard's magic, but Draculos was so much stronger than she was that she couldn't move. If she could only have moved…

Cobra managed a flick of his wrist, and he threw the keys into the slanted hallway, where they slid down the metal floor to Lucy, who was bludgeoning a wounded Racer about her baby.

Draculos sank the dagger directly into Cobra's back until the tip poked through his chest, and then pulled it back out, letting the dragon slayer fall into a pool of poison and blood. "Stab me in the back? Don't think I won't do the same."

Lucy snatched the keys, headbutted Sawyer into a state of unconsciousness, and ran with her keys, sliding into Cancer and Taurus Star Dress, because 'strong and really sharp' was just about her mood. She hit the corner wielding a shortsword in each hand and she didn't know exactly what was going on, but she trusted her instincts and landed a heavy first blow, opening a deep gash in Draculos before he had an opportunity to react.

He was so close to Wendy, and he lost control of his mind-control victims for a second, giving Wendy an opportunity to enchant Lucy and then run to her side.

Wendy took a fighting stance, brows drawn in determination. "I can't fight the enchantments by on my own, even if I can help others."

Lucy decided this was definitely a problem and similar to the problem of a summoner's body being their weak point. Her being able to move and fight was dependent on Wendy.

"Open, Gate of the Twins! Gemini!"

They appeared with a _pop_ and immediately took the form of Wendy, using the powers on Wendy, and then on Lucy.

Lucy ran at him with a slash and Wendy knelt next to Cobra, trying to use her healing magic to save his life. She really wasn't sure if she had the offensive abilities to defeat him, but she could feel Laxus was somewhere around, and she could hear not only thunder, but also fire and the strange dissembling sound of Gildarts' magic.

"You're astounding for a woman who just had such a precious little baby," he said.

Lucy made contact with a hard kick to his jaw. "Where is my daughter?!"

"She's safe! Nikki took her away," Wendy quickly said.

She felt a flood of relief, because she knew Nikki was very fast. The only one of them that might be able to catch him was laying poisoned and unconscious in the hallway. This left her free to be a very pissed off mommy, and she found strength in her anger that she had not known before.

In the wild, even playing nicely with a bear cub will end in a swift and bloody death at the hands of the mama bear, but this creep had purposefully taken her precious dragon baby with the intention of causing harm.

Draculos threw her hard against a wall and she launched off with her feet and used the kinetics magic to collide with him like a little rocket.

But her body wasn't working quite like she wanted it too. She wasn't in the best shape because she'd just had a baby, she was still a little sub-par physically from being drugged, and her hips and pelvic region just weren't cooperating with her. Most of her calories went to breastfeeding, and her body was just in a whole different mode. She knew she had just given birth and she wasn't really ready to fight, but there hadn't been a choice.

Lucy's legs wobbled under her and Draculos moved in on her. Wendy tried to attack, but he threw Wendy against Lucy and neared them with the bloody dagger.

Wendy was about to attack when suddenly _angry lightning_ happened.

It was blinding, crushingly powerful, and magically dense enough it made Lucy tremble and she knew it wouldn't hurt her. As powerful as she was, Laxus was a creature on another level-the monster level, with Draculos.

Suddenly, there were no walls or ceiling, and they were sitting on the metal floor near the top of the ruins of Nirvana. Laxus was standing between Draculos and Cobra, Lucy, and Wendy.

"The baby…" he said.

"She's okay. Nikki's got her," Wendy answered.

Laxus fisted his hands at his sides. "Good."

Gildarts and Natsu were separated and fighting farther away because they'd run into quite a few wizards of fairly high caliber, including Bluenote Stinger, who had taken a step up in terms of power level, as well as Rufus and RustyRose and a few others.

Draculos started to transform, something that was not known about him previously. At least, no one had ever mentioned in casual conversation or in the written request to kill him that he was going to transform into an actual demon. He grew several feet, muscles bulging out as they were covered in shiny, pitch-black skin. His teeth elongated to sharp points, and the pupils of his eyes vanished-along with his nose, which Laxus found unnecessarily gross.

"What the fuck are you supposed to be?"

Draculos let out a rattling growl.

Laxus went at him anyway, and the two fell from the top of Nirvana into the woods below, and Lucy watched them collide, flashes of lightning and darkness as they tore a wide path of destruction through the forest.

Lucy struggled to stand, and Wendy crawled back to Cobra. "Is he on our side?"

"I don't know if he's on our side. But he was on Mavis' side," Wendy said.

"Is he going to make it?"

Cobra's eyes cracked open. "I can't hear anymore. It's so quiet," he huffed, his voice gurgly.

"I'm not sure," Wendy said.

"Hey you, c'mere," he said, weakly pointing at Lucy.

Lucy knelt next to him, and he grabbed her head with one hand and pulled her down low, and then whispered in her ear.

"Take care of Kinana. Help her be happy. Promise me."

Lucy mumbled, "Kinana…"

Her palm hit his face so hard his feet jerked up. "O-Owww…"

The blonde said, "If you want her to be taken care of, then you take care of her. If you want her to be happy, then make her happy. Everything you do is stupid and I don't understand it."

"It's not that easy, the government-"

"Then take her and run away to another country. You just need to start living your life at some point and stop trying to do stuff, because that doesn't work for you. You always walk down this dark path and then realize you're not that into it."

Wendy kept trying to heal him, happy to hear Lucy yell at Cobra. She felt like all the Ishgari dragon slayers were in some way brothers and sisters, and he was the brother who was always in trouble, but not actually a terrible person.

Lucy heard the destruction of Gildarts and Natsu join the combat with Draculos, and assumed the fight might not last longer. "You guys can just be Erik and Kinana, not Cobra and Cubellios. You got turned into an asshole and she got turned into a snake, but you're both able to live now. Go somewhere no one will recognize you. Go out on dates. Get a place together. Have a baby. Life is actually pretty amazing if you let it be."

"A baby?" Cobra was sure he would have blushed if all his blood wasn't on the floor. "It's not like that."

"Maybe it should be."

Lucy heard some kind of massive magic reaction, and the woods suddenly became quiet, like the fight was over. She felt relieved, until Wendy jumped.

"I smell blood. And lots of it. Natsu's, and Laxus' and Gildarts' too!"

She scrambled to the ledge, but she couldn't see anything.

Gildarts, Laxus, and Natsu?

At once?

Draculos _was_ ranked above any of them, and evidently for good reason.

Lucy didn't know what to do. The only ally she had was Wendy, and she and Wendy together were not even as powerful as one of the wizards he'd just beaten down in the woods. "Are they okay?"

"I don't smell death."

"Stay with him, okay?" she asked.

Wendy nodded. There was a part of her that wanted to play hero, but she'd learned the hardest way imaginable to make smart decisions. If Lucy told her to stay, she would.

Lucy jumped down, keys jingling. The best thing about Star Dress is that it helped her not be fighting barefoot in her pajamas, which is how she'd awoken.

The powerful magical pulse and thrown the wizards about, and she found Gildarts, barely alive and unconscious. Then Natsu, in the same state. And finally Laxus.

As relieved as she was that none of them were dead, her mind was spinning at a million miles an hour about what was going to happen next.

He stepped out onto the path behind her as she knelt next to her husband.

Lucy stood too her feet and looked into his blank, empty eyes. From where she stood, it was all a sad sham; on the other side of the promise of a world ruled by magic, there was just one big jerk. She wondered how many people would have supposed Ouroboros if they could see their monster of a leader, violent, and bloodthirsty.

She didn't know what to do. If he knocked out the three strongest wizards of Fairy Tail in less than fifteen minutes, she wasn't packing anything that measured up. She wondered if she broke a key...but even then the Celestial Spirit King hadn't defeated Mard Greer, so there was a chance that wouldn't work.

Briefly, she entertained the idea that maybe Loke's Regulus light powers would be effective, but he didn't even move when she tried, and punished her once she realized it didn't work by knocking her to the ground with a sharp blow.

Lucy tried several of her spirits in rapid succession, and the only thing she got for it was a busted nose. He seemed docile though, as if it was amusing for him to watch her try.

What she had wasn't enough.

On her last try, he threw her to one side and approached Laxus as he laid on his face on the forest floor, dagger in hand.

"Don't you dare!" she shrieked.

Draculos looked down at her. "What are you going to do to stop me?"

Lucy held up her keys and looked at them desperately as if they'd give her an answer. She could only summon those keys she had, or use Star Dress for a spirit summoned with a golden key, and neither of those were working.

 _A spirit summoned with a golden key…_

She summoned the Celestial Spirit King with a golden key.

Since she could still use Aquarius Star Dress when she didn't have an active key, she suspected the ability to use Star Dress was based on having ever summoned a spirit. By that logic, it should have been possible.

Lucy held the broken stump of her old Aquarius key and threw her head back, trying to remember how it felt in that moment, when he crossed through from their world to theirs. And she found a connection on the other side, a 'yes' to the question 'will you join your magic with mine?'

Magic poured into her from the Celestial Realm, churning around her in a blue vortex.

Her body wasn't at any point in her life conditioned to contain or manage the amount of magic inside of her, and suffering from a sudden overage, it fizzled out all around her as little blue sparks as she took this final form of Celestial Spirit magic.

This form left her armored just like the Celestial Spirit King, with a big, powerful sword that took two hands to wield. Magic spilled continually from the open gate to the Celestial Realm that her body was at the moment and she stacked this magic on her kinetics magic to move so fast Draculos almost didn't see her coming.

She missed with the sword, but not with her foot.

Draculos went flying through trees, snapping them with his body, and she ran after him with lightning speed and a sword that was very literally meant for nothing by utter destruction. Even when she missed him, a blast of magic emanated from it.

He decided that if she figured out how to swing the blade, he was in big trouble, but when he tried to move out of her way, she moved quite a bit faster and she was packing more magic than a human body was really meant to contain.

As was the case with powerful spells, there was always a trade; the longer she stayed like this, the more destruction it would do to her body until she became strong enough to handle it. As long as she used magic like this before she was strong enough to, there was going to be a steep cost.

Lucy figured this out as well when her nose inexplicably started to pour blood and she started to tingle everywhere at once.

She swung, he moved, she swung, he moved, she swung, he ran.

All he had to do to win was make Lucy stay like this until her body could no longer maintain. Draculos counted himself fortunate this was apparently the first time she used this form.

Her head was spinning and five minutes in, her stomach started to hurt. She knew the gross amount of magic was making her sick, but she couldn't let up until she killed this monster that had taken her baby and would kill her guildmates and husband.

She coughed, there was blood. Everything started to hurt.

He tried to use the same attack that had scattered her guildmates, but she cut through the spell with the sword and charged forward. He leapt from a short cliff, and she jumped after him.

Lucy saw her vision start to turn white at the edges and looked down to see blood running from the plates of the armor. Her magic was literally killing her, and she knew she had to end the fight soon.

She fell to her knees, leaning on the sword.

"Hm? Are you finished?"

He drew closer to her. "That was interesting. In a few years, you'd have been a legend, you know. People choose to die for the most unremarkable things - a baby. Three men in a forest. Loyalty to an old king who will never know their name."

Lucy panted, finding it hard to breathe. "You're going to die for nothing. In a forest on a cold night because you don't know," she shoved the sword into his stomach and into the tree behind him, "when someone is bluffing."

Celestial magic - which was particularly damaging to someone practicing darker transformation - exploded in his insides and Lucy dropped her own transformation and fell to the ground in her blood-soaked pajamas.

XXX

Questions that haunted the next few days:

First, how did Lucy kill Draculos Hyberion.

And second, how did her body _get like that_?

Laxus was sitting in a hospital in Crocus, where Lucy had ended up. Doctors didn't have any answers, only that there had been extensive damage to pretty much all the tissues in her body and they didn't know how she hadn't died yet. They seemed convinced there was too much damage for her body to stay alive, although Wendy stayed with her constantly, trying to fix what had been done.

The person he'd really been waiting on was Porlyusica. There was no doubt in his mind that her illness was magical in origin.

She came with Makarov, and the two older wizards found Laxus trying to feed Mavis a bottle in Lucy's room. The baby had a bruise on her forehead, and he seemed overwhelmed with life at the moment.

Makarov extended his arms. "Let me take her for a while."

"Mavis isn't eating right now that she has to have formula. I don't know what to do. I need this woman to wake up already," he said, handing the baby to him.

Porlyusica felt along Lucy's body, took some of her blood, mixed potions, and did further examinations. She poked Lucy's toes and nothing happened. She had no reflexes, and she was barely breathing on her own. She looked at the medical charts, and gave Lucy a worried look.

The older woman had been contrary toward Laxus and Lucy being together from the beginning because she believed he'd hurt Lucy in the end. When Lucy was pregnant and alone, she felt like that feeling was justified, but now she just felt sad for the kids and their baby. Laxus really did love his family, and as he sat there bruised and bandaged, he looked scared.

She spent a long time studying Lucy, her medical information, and listened to the recounts of the night but those weren't useful because no one saw the fight.

Porlyusica's expression became increasingly more grim, and Laxus looked over to see every few minutes to watch his grandfather with his daughter.

Impatient, he abruptly asked, "What is it?"

Porlyusica answered, "I don't know. I've never seen anything like this."

Loke entered the hospital room. "Please allow me to explain."

They all looked up at him, and he looked down at Lucy sadly. "Lucy used the most powerful Celestial Spirit spell, and because she's not ready to use that spell, it did massive catastrophic organ damage although it did allow her to defeat Draculos. The spell she used involved merging the magic of the Celestial Spirit King with hers, so it was his magic that damaged her. When the link was broken, he cast a spell on her that will keep her from dying enable her body to heal, but as a side effect of the spell, she won't wake up until that process finishes."

Laxus didn't even know how he felt; first, he was relieved she wasn't brain dead or in a vegetative state, and he was glad she was going to be able wake up eventually, but when an immortal says 'a long time,' it's terrifying, especially to a man who just wanted to go home and live happily with his wife and their precious baby girl, who missed her mother so much.

Was it really too much to ask that he go home with his wife and baby and have a little peace?

First, he'd been taken from her by sleep, and now she had been taken from him by the same devil.

He waited a whole month, waiting at her side with their daughter, but then they had to make arrangements.

At Makarov's suggestion, Lucy was sent to Porlyusica's so she could look after Lucy properly. He asked Laxus if he needed help raising the baby, but he knew what it was like to be passed off by a parent so he was determined to be a good father to their little daughter. He found a babysitter, and he had his brother, and they made it work.

For the first few weeks, he liked to fall asleep face-first on Lucy's pillow because it carried her scent, but when a week turned into a month, and then two, her scent started to fade from the house and it scared him. He wasn't prepared or equipped to live in a Lucy-less world, but he had a daughter, and he loved her to death.

It seemed to go on forever, and on their daughter's first birthday, he found himself at Porlyusica's, telling her all about it.

"You should see Mavis, Lucy. She can walk a bit. Toddles around the house and tries to put everything in her mouth. She knows a couple of words. You're going to be surprised when you see her again. She's getting big.

"We can't wait to see you again."

 _ **Please Review!**_

Special thanks to Flamey Owl, Silverghostkitsune, thealicehuntt, megumiyoung, guest, kurahieiritr JIO, myth magyk fae, yumeyumi1986, clockrose, lunastarlady, anna, adabs18, boyceashlee, w1n6s-0f-f1r3, guest, axltz, thornado, katiekat, H.M. Akhlys, katelyn, bentears, 12rayne, paname, and cosmo0333 for reviewing!


	26. Lucy Fin!

Lucy's eyes blinked open with a flash of blue light as the spell the Celestial Spirit King put on her finally lifted. The spell kept her body from deteriorating and atrophying and held it somewhat frozen in time while she was healing, and when she sat up and looked around, she recognized Porlyusica's hut fairly easily. Some things seemed to be in different places, but she just assumed the old woman had redecorated.

Porlyusica wasn't home at the moment, so she decided to get up and head home since she felt fine.

There was a box by the bed with some clothes and personal effects for the day she woke up, and this was that day. She took the clothes and her keys, feeling a strange sense of joy as she clenched them in hand.

She took a shower and dressed, fixed her hair, and was about to leave the house when Loke appeared in her path.

"Good afternoon, Lucy."

"Loke! It's good to see you. I feel like it's been a while for some reason."

The lion spirit said, "Lucy, I want to tell you this so you're not confused. You just woke up from a five year coma."

Lucy stared for a second as her stomach flip-flopped repeatedly. "That's not...how could...tell me you're joking! I have a baby, Loke. I just got married. I haven't even gotten to spend any time with my husband."

"You still have a husband and a baby. The baby's quite a bit bigger. She's quite gifted. And Laxus has done a good job of raising her on his own until you can come home. They come and visit you several times a week, and they've been waiting for you to come home," he said.

She covered her face. "No, this isn't happening. Loke, just tell me this is some stupid joke. That's all this is. This is a nightmare. Ready to wake up for real."

Loke opened the door. "Your family is waiting."

Lucy ran down the path in the woods, to an old road, then into Magnolia and down a familiar route to her home. The city had changed quite a bit since she'd been asleep, although it looked like Magnolia hadn't been levelled in a while.

She ran up the steps to their house and reached for her keychain, where one ordinary key was hanging beside her celestial keys.

Lucy ran face-first into the first huge blond-headed guy she saw, which happened to be Nikki eating a sandwich in the kitchen.

"L-Lucy! You're okay!"

The voice was all wrong, and she looked up and yelled, "Oh my God, you're huge! What happened to you?"

Nikki smiled. "I don't really know. I am half an inch taller than Laxus."

She put her hands on his face. "You're so handsome and grown. Wow...I'm so happy to see you like this. You've been well?"

He nodded. "I made s-class this year. I graduated from school two years ago."

"How's Laxus? And our baby?"

The door creaked open and she saw her beloved husband come in behind a now five-year-old Mavis, who was talking quickly and excitedly.

"Can we go to the bookstore and get new books, Daddy?"

Laxus nodded. "Homework first, okay?"

"I don't have any today, Daddy."

She had a little pink lunchbox and a matching backpack as she stood there in a little pink dress with white shoes. Her eyes had turned an identical shade of brown as Lucy's during infancy, and she had long blonde hair that was braided into pigtails and tied with little pink ribbons.

Mavis froze as she stared at Lucy, and for a second, Laxus could only do the same.

Suddenly, Lucy was wrapped up in the tightest of hugs. She could feel how relieved and how happy he was to see her there, alive and awake. She couldn't imagine how it must have been for him.

"Don't you ever leave me again," he whispered, his voice a little ragged.

"I promise."

Laxus held her like that for a long time, burying his nose in her neck to take in her scent. And when he released her, it was because their daughter was standing right beside them, tugging on both of their shirts.

Lucy reached down and picked her up. "Hi, Baby."

"Hi, Mommy. I wanted to say hi for a long time! I have a lot to tell you about!" she said, squeezing Lucy back.

Mavis had no memories of her mother, but all of her life that she knew so far she'd been visiting her sleeping mother in anticipation of the day that she would awaken and come home. It was indescribably exciting to her that the day had finally arrived. She had only recently reached the age where she understood the concept that her mother had been badly injured and wasn't able to wake up. As a toddler, she'd tried with all her heart to wake her up during visits to Porlyusica's hut.

Mavis talked a million miles an hour, and Lucy sat down on the couch with her and listened to her excited ramblings as she tried to remember all the things she wanted to tell her mom.

Laxus sat next to them and laid his head on her shoulder, squeezing her hand tightly as their daughter told her mother stories.

Their daughter was academically gifted and started reading very early in life. She loved books, climbing trees, coloring, beating up little boys, and cooking with her uncle.

Lucy noticed a chain on her neck, and on it, there was a silver Canis Minor key. It wasn't hers, but it was a key nonetheless. "You have a key?" she asked.

"You want to meet my special friend, Mommy?"

Mavis wrapped her hand around the key. "Open, Gate of Canis Minor!"

A yellow 'Plue' appeared with a poof.

"This is my puppy! His name is Boo."

Boo jumped on the couch and sat on his master's lap as she sat next to her mother.

Lucy summoned Plue, and they sat there together with their little, shaking, dog spirits. She showed her daughter her keys. "Mine is named Plue. I can summon many different kinds of spirits. I can teach you."

In her daughter, she saw the same excitement she had as a child when she started to learn how to summon 'friends,' and it touched her heart that Laxus had nurtured and protected that in her. She was a very bright and wonderful child, and she knew he'd done a good job taking care of her.

Mavis had _so much_ to talk about with her, and soon, she jumped off the couch and got 'her pictures,' an album of photos from her life with little notes that were mostly written in Nikki's handwriting. She also eventually dragged in a box of artwork and crafts projects she'd been making for her while she slept. The art ranged from the uncoordinated scribblings of a toddler to cute little flower drawings she made now at the age of five.

Laxus was quiet and peaceful just having her there. Plus, he'd gotten used to their precocious child talking his ear off.

After she'd had their undivided attention for quite a while, Nikki came and asked, "Hey kiddo, you want to help me make a special dinner for your Mom? I need my assistant."

"Yeah! I'm going to go cook Mommy but we can talk more later!" she climbed over the back of the couch and ran after her uncle, and Laxus sort of melted into her lap.

He smiled at her, and reached up to her face. "I missed you so much."

"I missed so much. First words, first steps...she's already not a baby anymore."

Laxus smiled a little. "She's more fun like this. All personality, no diapers. She's a good kid."

Lucy ran her fingers through his hair and fought the urge to just sit there and weep. She was happy to be with her family, but devastated she missed so much and even more sad about how much they must have gone through without her, especially Laxus.

He'd been by himself for years with their baby.

"Laxus, are you...have you been okay by yourself?"

He nodded.

They talked for an hour with him laying on her like that, mostly about their baby but about others in the guild, especially the people she was closest too.

"This might be a terrible thing to ask, but I've been asleep for a while and well, you didn't...I mean…"

Laxus sat up and gave her a little bit of a scowl. "Are you asking me if I've had sex? Of course not. I'm married. It's not like you died. You were just taking a really long nap. I actually haven't had sex in almost six years if you add up the time I was the one asleep while you were pregnant. I've kind of gotten over it at this point."

"Do you want to?"

He looked up to the opening to the kitchen, where their daughter was sitting on the counter stirring ingredients in a bowl. Once he was convinced she was going to stay occupied, he stood up, threw Lucy over his shoulder, and ran up the steps to their bedroom.

Clothes were torn and went flying, and Lucy found herself on her back on the bed while he pulled her panties off, frantically kissing down her legs.

Laxus missed everything about her, from the feeling of her skin to her scent and the way she tasted, but his long-repressed sexual needs surged forth and made demands of him and he made his way carefully inside her at first since her body wasn't used to having sex again either. Once she was comfortable with him inside of her, he set a frantic, crazed pace.

It was the most passionate, crazy, hungry sex, and Lucy discovered she'd missed his touch too. The last time they'd been together was right after their marriage when the whole Ouroboros fiasco had been set into motion.

They came together, and went right back at it, and then paused to shower and come down for dinner, although Lucy was certain she wasn't going to get any sleep overnight.

During dinner, Lucy realized Mavis was a very necessary part of their household. Laxus didn't start a lot of conversations on his own, and Nikki didn't either. They had different personalities, but were equally quiet in a way. Mavis talked enough for everyone and Lucy believed she'd probably ended up like that because she was raised by two men who weren't particularly talkative.

There was a framed photo on the wall of Nikki with Wendy, and when Lucy took notice of it, she saw Wendy had made a gorgeous woman. She was also kissing him on the cheek in the picture. "You and Wendy? Really? Since when?!"

Nikki blushed a little. "Two years ago? For some reason, we just started getting closer over time. I kind of lost interest in being with my old girlfriend and she and Romeo have kind of the same temper. It didn't really work with them. Then after the Grand Magic Games a couple of years ago, I let my idiot brother and Elfman convince me getting drunk is manly. I ended up running into Wendy and telling her I've been in love with her since forever. She kissed me, I barfed on her feet and passed out in the girls' room. We've been together since."

"That is literally the worst love story ever, except the one where two friends go to the Grand Magic Games and one of them kisses Bacchus and the other throws a fit and decides he can't live without her," Lucy said.

Mavis said, "I have a boyfriend."

"No, you don't," Laxus answered, but in a tone that suggested this conversation had taken place on many occasions before.

"Mhmm!"

"Nope."

"Mhmm!"

"I will kill him, Mavis."

"No you won't."

This went on for a few minutes, until Mavis finished her food. Her father threatening to kill her male schoolmate seemed to be normal enough that she was fairly dismissive of it.

Lucy asked about everyone at the guild, and was a little shocked to hear of marriages and babies. She asked about Kinana, but she and a certain convicted felon had vanished into thin air and hadn't been seen since the night Lucy went missing. Most of her friends were either dating or married, several of them had kids, but with the time that passed, she knew that should have happened. It would have been stranger if it didn't.

Mavis was old enough to take her own bath after dinner, but Lucy was happy to comb out her wet hair and dry it and help her pick out some pajamas to sleep in. Mavis had inherited her love of books and reading and Lucy laid next to her in her little bed and listened to Mavis read, stuttering a bit to sound out words that were challenging to her until she nearly passed out with a book in hand.

Lucy turned out the lights and watched Mavis slowly start to fall asleep.

"I love you, Mommy. Let's read again tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay, baby."

For hours, she watched her precious baby sleep, amazed at the little person she was growing up to be.

Then, Lucy slid out of the bed and went to their bedroom, where Laxus was sitting on the edge of the bed in his boxers. The only person who had slept in his bed for the past five years was his daughter, but that hadn't happened in quite a while. He'd gotten used to being alone to the point he was almost nervous she was back, as if she'd disappear again if he did anything wrong.

Lucy found he'd changed nothing about their bedroom, and all her clothes were neatly folded as if they'd been waiting for her all along. She changed into a nightgown right in front of him, and then sat down next to him, squeezing his hand tightly.

"Can we finally be together now?" he asked.

Lucy nodded. "Finally."

Their relationship had been marked by a series of delays interrupted by intermittent bliss. They got together, then went to Indus which put a freeze on everything. That had led to the discovery of Nikki and the fact that Laxus was carrying a deadly curse. Suddenly, being happy with Lucy came with the terrifying fear that they'd someday have a baby that would die. She passed her s-class trials and got pregnant anyway during this time, and then they went to Alvarez to break the curse. Not long after that, they were trying to deal with an unplanned pregnancy and get married and suddenly he was gone. By the time they reunited, she'd had a baby and then she was gone-for years.

Every step forward had come with a fight, but finally they were in the same room together again.

"I'm not letting you go again. I don't care what happens. You have to stay here with me. You're my wife. You belong here with me and Mavis. We need you. I need you."

Lucy kissed him gently. "I love you."

"I love you too."

Makarov told them often that they'd have to fight for anything that was worth keeping, and there were no words for how hard they'd both had to struggle as individuals and as a couple just to be there that night.

She laid her head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat.

"Can we stay like this forever?"

"Only if you promise me no more getting kidnapped or long naps."

Lucy nodded. "I promise."

She propped herself up on her hands on each side of him and bent down to kiss him. Their love had been tried by fire and things far worse, and it had survived. They had survived.

And finally, they were together, face-to-face, husband and wife.

They'd come so far from where they started as a self-conscious girl who didn't have confidence to embrace her own power and a man who was scared to commit himself to anyone. Growing with him had been a beautiful and painful experience, and somehow, they'd grown together in a way that there wasn't a force in the universe that could pull them apart then and they knew it.

As they tangled in the dark, he whispered in her ear every secret he'd been keeping for her, and she listened, and she moved her body with his until he released the stress of waiting for her for years.

He fell asleep with her in his arms, and knew that was the closest thing in reality to 'happily ever after.'

Fairytale ending? No. Fairy Tail ending? Absolutely.

 _ **The End**_

 _AN: I'd had the last chapter and this epilogue written for a while, but I kept going back and rewording it and reworking it. I'm really proud of this story and the journey I got to go on with my characters. I really wanted to do a fic where Lucy gets to power-up, but with Laxus and they go on this professional warpath where their love is kind of on the side at first but once they realize they want to be together, they have to fight and there are challenges everywhere._

 _I started another Lalu with an AU tilt to it. It's called 'Star Crossed Sarcasm.'_


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